The Constitutional Court (AYM) decision published in the Official Gazette today included a decision on social media. It was decided to cancel the sentence of the person who was disciplined by his institution for criticizing the public order. The Constitutional Court described the post in question as “freedom of expression”.A person who works as an engineer at Antalya Metropolitan Municipality General Directorate of Water and Wastewater Administration (ASAT) made a post on his Facebook account criticizing the public order. He did not name any institution in his post. A local newspaper in Antalya, on the other hand, published a news with the headline “Shares that confuse ASAT” based on the said post.
After the news of the sharing, he said about the public employee, “By crossing the limits of freedom of expression with social media sharing, the legal entity of the institution and the administrators are indirectly accused of baseless accusations, trying to wear out and create a perception in the public, thus acting in a manner that does not suit the cases of civil servants and shakes the sense of reputation and trust. A disciplinary investigation was launched by the administration on the allegation of ” and a disciplinary punishment was given to him.
The person whose objection was rejected by the disciplinary board filed a lawsuit in the administrative court for the annulment of the sentence. The local court decided to cancel the case, but upon the objection made to the regional administrative court, the local court’s decision was annulled, and the regional administrative court decided to reject the case. After the decision became final, the applicant filed an individual application to the Constitutional Court, claiming that his right to freedom of expression was violated.
The Constitutional Court said “freedom of expression”
The Constitutional Court, on the other hand, decided that there was no illegality in the post since the name of any institution or person was not mentioned in the post, and that the freedom of expression guaranteed in Article 26 of the Constitution was violated by imposing a disciplinary penalty.
The AYM’s statement on the decision is as follows:
“As it can be seen in the Facebook post dated 24.07.2017, the allegations that no institution or person is mentioned in the criticisms made, therefore the claim that the plaintiff tries to undermine the institution and administrators with baseless accusations and try to create a perception in the eyes of the public is unconfirmed. has been reached, there is no lawfulness in the established transaction.”
Following this decision of the Constitutional Court, the disciplinary punishment given to the public employee will be cancelled. You can access the text of the Facebook post and the detailed decision statement of the Constitutional Court from the Official Gazette link in the source section of our news.
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