The talks regarding AKP’s proposal for lifting parliamentary immunity started with AKP MPs insulting and attacking HDP MPs. The meeting is open for all MPs except members of the commission.

HPD’s commission members Meral Danış Beştaş, Mithat Sancar and Garo Paylan were present in the commission as well as MPs İdris Baluken, Ferhat Encü, Ertuğrul Kürkçü and Mahmut Toğrul.

Sancar proposed the journalists be allowed to watch the entire session. He also noted that the hall was insufficient and some MPs didn’t have seats, so the meeting should be moved to a different hall. The AKP MPs insulted and harassed the HDP MPs and a fight broke out.

As AKP deputies tried to remove journalists before the procedure was discussed, HDP Group Deputy Chair İdris Baluken objected and said, “What are you trying to hide from the press?” The journalists were forcibly removed from the commission by the police.

WHAT DOES HDP PROPOSE?

HDP wants all immunity except for the chair immunity to be lifted and will be proposing that “verdicts like arrest or judicial control be applied after the MP’s term is over and that the MPs are tried in the Supreme Court.”

CHP Leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and MHP Leader Devlet Bahçeli had declared that they will support AKP’s proposal. But there is no consensus in CHP regarding this matter. CHP Vice Chairperson Sezgin Tanrıkulu had made a statement that AKP’s proposal should not be supported.

WHAT’S IN AKP’S PROPOSAL?

The AKP's proposal calls for a temporary article added to the Constitution and it will lift the parliamentary immunity for MPs who have summaries of proceedings in the Ministry of Justice, Prime Ministry, Parliamentary Speaker’s Office and Joint Commission.

The summaries will be sent to the courts in the 15 days following the law going into effect and the MPs will be tried on these cases alone.

Because the immunities are lifted via a temporary article in the Constitution and not in the procedure foreseen in the Constitution and the Bylaw, the MPs will not be able to exercise their right to call for an annulment.

Because the first sentence of the second clause of the Article 83 of the Constitution that dictates MPs can not be arrested, the MPs whose immunities are lifted will be open to interrogation and arrest without a decree from the parliament.

IMMUNITY CASES REACH 600

The immunity cases at the parliament have reached 600. 46 of the cases are about AKP MPs, 179 about CHP, 354 about HDP, 17 about MHP and 5 are about Ankara independent MP Aylin Nazlıaka.

The number of MPs with cases against them have risen to 135. 27 of these are AKP MPs, 51 CHP, 49 HDP, 7 MHP. One of the 135 MPs is the independent Ankara MP Aylin Nazlıaka.