CHP to seek annulment of MİT Act

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

CHP deputy group chair Akif Hamzaçebi speaks to reporters in Ankara. AA photo

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is planning to ask the Constitutional Court this week to cancel a law that amended the act regulating the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) to save the agency’s chief and four other officials from a judicial probe.

“We’ll speedily take the law to the Constitutional Court. And no matter what the Constitutional Court decides, this law will be rejected by public conscience,” CHP deputy group chair Akif Hamzaçebi told reporters yesterday, adding that the party had already begun writing the application. He slammed President Abdullah Gül’s lightning approval of the bill and insisted the legislation would allow prime ministers to assign MİT to tasks “in dark realms” and make use of the agency “outside the boundaries of its duties.”

Under the amendment, passed hastily last week, the prime minister’s permission is required for any investigation into MİT members and “public officials assigned to specific duties by the prime minister” for crimes they commit while on duty or for offenses that fall within the jurisdiction of special-authority courts.

In further criticism of the government yesterday, the CHP slammed the prime minister for insisting his Justice and Development Party (AKP) aimed to raise devout youth. “I advise the prime minister to end this debate,” Hamzaçebi said.