Gergerlioğlu to receive back wages for time he was expelled from parliament

An Ankara court has ruled that Green Left Party lawmaker Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu receive salaries for the time period during which he was stripped of his parliamentary seat and imprisoned.

Saturday July 15 2023 04:34 pm

Duvar English

Green Left Party MP Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu has won the lawsuit he had filed against the parliament for not receiving salary during the time period he was imprisoned, according to ANKA news agency.

Gergerlioğlu, also a human rights defender, was sentenced to prison in 2018 for "making terrorism propaganda" by sharing a news article on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Twitter back in 2016.

The politically motivated charges led to him being stripped of his parliamentary status in March 2021 and his imprisonment a month later. At the time, Gergerlioğlu was serving as a lawmaker from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

In July 2021, he was released from prison after the Constitutional Court ruled that his right to be elected and engage in political activity as well as his right to personal freedom and security had been violated. The lawmaker’s parliamentary status was also reinstated.

Afterwards, Gergerlioğlu filed a lawsuit with the Ankara 17th Administrative Court to claim the salaries he was unable to receive during his time in prison. The court rejected the lawmaker’s demand, saying that the parliament “did not have any fault.”

Gergerlioğlu took the case to an appeals court, saying that his salaries for the March-July 2021 period need to be paid to him as “other public officials have their salaries restored in the case of an acquittal or removal of a certain conviction.”

The Ankara 7th Regional Administrative Court analyzed the case and ruled for the payment of salary payments to Gergerlioğlu along with the interest payments for the relevant period.

Topics Turkey Gergerlioğlu Green Left Party Turkish parliament