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August 26th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Turkey’s opposition CHP and HDP sharply criticize two new emergency decrees which extended President R. Tayyip Erdogan’s powers in line with the new executive presidential system and further erodes the powers of the legislative branch and legislators.
Turkey’s largest opposition party, the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the leftist People’s Democratic Party (HDP) which stands particularly strong in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish areas, sharply criticize the granting of powers to the office of the Ankara Chief prosecutor to investigate members of parliament for alleged crimes committed before or after an election.
CHP Deputy Chairman Zeynep Altıok said the new regulations “de facto abolished” the legislative prerogative of parliament. CHP Parliamentary Group Chair Levent Gök, for his part, stressed that the change violated one of the fundamental principles of criminal law: That local courts at the area where the crime was allegedly committed be authorized.
Gök compared the new decree to the former state security courts, saying the authorized court for trying MPs would become the kind of special courts that were highly criticized during the controversial Ergenekon and Sledgehammer (Balyoz) cases.
The two cases were based on fabricated evidence – the accused dismissed. The cases did, however, result in the arrests and detention of hundreds of military officers and allowed the Islamist AKP to consolidate its party-control of the Turkish armed forces and change legislation so the military no longer stands to protect “the Republic”.
Meanwhile, HDP spokesperson Osman Baydemir said immunities for lawmakers were “completely suspended” with the latest emergency decree, which paves the way for prosecutors to investigate lawmakers whenever they wish. “It is an illegal arrangement that will take from parliament the requirement to go through a necessary procedure to remove [an MP’s] immunity,” Baydemir said, adding that the government simply wants to establish another “tutelage court.”
He also criticized a second decree that tied the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) to the Presidency – rather than the Prime Ministry as before – while the president would head a new body called the National Intelligence Coordination Board (MIKK). Baydemir warned that parliament will further lose its functions as a result of the decree laws.
Gök, for his part, suggested that the decrees, especially the one linking the MIT to the presidency, opened the path for a “spy state.” “Erdoğan is establishing his own state. This understanding arranges intelligence about both Turkey and his party under a spy state,” he said, adding that the change showed that the president does not have any confidence in the prime minister.
CH/L – nsnbc 26.08.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/08/26/turkeys-opposition-chp-and-hdp-blast-akp-administrations-latest-emergency-decrees/
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