Clash over lawmaker's jailing plunges Turkish judiciary into crisis

Turkey's judiciary was plunged further into crisis on Wednesday as top courts clashed once again over the imprisonment of opposition lawmaker Can Atalay.

One of the highest courts decided again not to enforce the release of Atalay ordered by the Constitutional Court last year, state news agency Anadolu reported.

The Constitutional Court's decision, in which the judges had contended Atalay has parliamentary immunity, has "no legal value" and should therefore not be implemented, the Court of Cassation said in its latest ruling on the issue.

Atalay, elected to parliament in May from the Workers' Party of Turkey (TIP), has been imprisoned since April for allegedly aiding an attempt to overthrow the government with the 2013 Gezi Park protests.

The Constitutional Court had sided with Atalay's defence lawyers, who argued that his prison sentence was not yet final at the time of his winning office, meaning he should be released from prison.

But the Court of Cassation argued in the appeals case that the verdict was, in fact, final and so Atalay must remain behind bars.

The appeals court has now twice rejected the other court's judgement after a previous ruling in November.

The rare divergence between the two courts has led to a heated debate around what the opposition party and bar associations called a constitutional crisis.

According to Turkish law, the Constitutional Court is the top court in the country and its verdicts are final, without the possibility of appeal.

The dispute is taking place in an already tense political context: the verdict against Atalay in the so-called Gezi trial was widely considered politically motivated and was ruled unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights.

The police crackdown on Gezi Park demonstrators in Istanbul in 2013 triggered nationwide anti-government protests, representing the largest such mobilisation against then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. (dpa)