Speaker admits failure in bid for jailed MPs

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Parliamentary Speaker Çiçek complains that politics have been very tough this term. AA photo

Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek tacitly conceded defeat in a bid to secure the release of jailed lawmakers as he made his first comments on the issue after his Justice and Development Party (AKP) rejected a joint opposition proposal to resolve the problem.

“We are failing and cannot bring the four edges of the bundle together. Politics have been very tough in this term. This toughness makes the solution more difficult. I hope we will get a result,” Çiçek told reporters yesterday.

Çiçek had undertaken an initiative to draw up a legal formula to free the eight opposition lawmakers. As a result, the opposition parties agreed on an amendment that would have included Parliament members in the scope of exemptions from pre-trial detention.

The bid, however, failed last week as the AKP rejected the proposal and referred the problem to the courts. The AKP said it had conducted a survey which indicated that the majority of the public was against the release of the lawmakers.

Referring to the purported survey, Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu yesterday described the AKP’s attitude as “an example of political immorality.”