The Constitutional Court has ruled that the penalties handed out to four newspapers by the BİK constitute a violation. The newspapers will be compensated

The Constitutional Court has ruled that the decisions of the Press Advertising Agency (BİK) temporarily banning Sözcü, Cumhuriyet, BirGün and Evrensel newspapers from publishing public advertisements violated the freedom of the press and freedom of expression. The Court reached this conclusion in a pilot ruling which it adopted after receiving various applications from the newspapers in question. Each of the four newspapers will be paid TRY 10,000 in damages.

The Court reached its decision on the admissibility of the claim that the freedom of press and expression was violated unanimously. It also ruled by a majority verdict that the violations stemmed from structural problems.

“Violations are rooted in structural problems”

The Constitutional Court argued that the decisions of courts of first instance to order official announcement and advertisement bans on the basis of Article 49 of the Law No. 195 constituted a systematic problem and asked the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Parliament) to review the said article to address this structural problem.

The Court also asserted that any interference by the BİK with the freedom of press as per Article 49 of the Law No. 195 must be in accordance with the requirements of the democratic social order as per Article 13 of the Constitution, and called for certain recommendations and standards to be taken into consideration in the new legal arrangements so as not to violate Article 26 of the Constitution.

Since the violations stemmed from structural problems, the Constitutional Court decided to implement the “pilot judgment” modality and postponed the examination of applications concerning the same issue made after the ruling for a period of one year.

The ruling, dated 10 March 2022, stated that “A ruling must be given to the effect that the claim that the freedom of expression and press has been violated is admissible.” It cited the section of Article 29 of the Constitution, which states that, “The principles regarding the publication, the conditions of publication and the financial resources of periodicals, and the profession of journalism shall be regulated by law. The law shall not impose any political, economic, financial, and technical conditions obstructing or making difficult the free dissemination of news, thoughts, or opinions.”

BİK says suspends issuing penalties for ethics breaches

Following the ruling, the BİK issued a statement stating that it had suspended issuing penalties for ethics breaches. “Our Executive Board has decided not to put applications related to the Press Ethics Code on the agenda of their meetings until the Grand National Assembly of Turkey makes amendments to Article 49 of Law 195,” BİK said in a statement. “We would like to emphasise that no amendment has been made thus far to Article 49 of Law No. 195 of 2 January  1961 on the Press Advertising Agency, entitled ‘Penalties’. The Press Ethics Code determined in 1961, 1964, 1994 and 2022 by the General Assembly of the Institution are based on the said article,” the statement read.