Dismissed judge candidate a victim of Gülen network, investigation reveals

ANKARA – Mesut Hasan Benli

The Gülen network was responsible for the unfair dismissal of young judge candidate Gülay Tezcan in 2011, a former member of the Council of State has said.

The dismissal came about when Tezcan was investigated after missing two days in a two-month long training course organized by the Academy of Justice. She was subsequently discharged from duty on Aug. 25, 2011 by the Justice Ministry.

Tezcan applied to the 12th chamber of the Council of State, requesting that the expression “discontinuation to duties” in the regulation, which was responsible for her dismissal, be annulled. The Council of State rejected her appeal in a plenary session of its administrative law division.

However, former member of the Council of State Vahit Bektaş, whose signature was among those who ruled in Tezcan’s case, has admitted to prosecutors that the decision was “against the law.”

“We analyzed Tezcan’s objection. Following an examination undertaken by the council, we rejected the complainant’s objection with a decision dated 30/01/2013 and numbered 2012/499. But this decision was against the law. It subsequently disturbed my conscience and I regretted making such a ruling,” Vahit Bektaş told the Ankara Prosecutor’s Office in an investigation related to the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization’s (FETÖ) infiltration of the Council of State.

“Before this decision was handed down, Hasan Turgut, a member of the [U.S.-based Islamic preacher] Fethullah Gülen network from the 12th Chamber [of the Council of State] had personnel inform me that the candidate in question was not appropriate as a judge and was fond of drinking alcohol. But alcohol was not one of the reasons given for the removal of the judge candidate from civil office. The fact that she missed training for two days was cited as a reason,” Bektaş added.

He also claimed that if he had ruled in any other way regarding Tezcan’s case, members of the Gülen network would have harassed him and his position would have been under threat.

Bektaş also said that FETÖ sympathizer Hüseyin Yıldırım was president of Turkey’s Justice Academy at the time of Tezcan’s dismissal.

Bektaş’s prosecutor said the Council of State rejected Tezcan’s objection because of instructions that Turgut issued to “Gülen network members Vahit Bektaş, Şaban Işık, İbrahim Aliusta, Halil Çırak, Mehmet Çelik, and Orhan Boyraz, who were then on duty at the plenary session of administrative law divisions.”

In light of the FETÖ’s infiltration of the judiciary, Tezcan once again appealed to the authorities regarding her case, winning her lawsuit in 2015. Tezcan now serves as a judge in Istanbul.

In the indictment against Bektaş, Tezcan’s case is said to resemble that of another judge candidate Didem Yaylalı, who was similarly dismissed from the profession by the Gülen network in the judiciary and later committed suicide in 2013.