Deputy Chairman Bülent Tezcan mentions the demands of CHP from ECHR

Deputy Chairman of CHP (main opposition party) that took the April 16th referendum on constitutional amendments to ECHR (European Commission for Human Rights) disclosed their demands from the ECHR: Verification of violation of rights, request for renewal of election and compensation.

The first target of the CHP is ensure that the application made to ECHR for the 16 April referendum which is referred to as “unsealed” because the YSK (Higher Election Board) changed the rules after officials had started counting the votes – an exercise against to the law and international agreements – is accepted by ECHR.

Deputy Chairman TEZCAN said the ECHR had accepted applications for the general elections so far but not applications for referendums and added it would be a first time if ECHR came up with a positive decision about eligibility of the situation. TEZCAN said they had three requests: “Determination of violations of rights, request for renewal of referendum and compensation.” Asked why the application was delayed for about two and a half months after the controversial referendum, the deputy said, “We have set up a delegation of 6 and prepared our application after examining the decisions and judicial opinions by the ECHR”.

Tezcan continued, “We know the difficulty of the case. “Contradiction to law” is clear, but until now the court has never worked on a referendum and always made decisions on the basis of general elections. We found some traces in some court decisions that it could examine this case as well. Tezcan also indicated they had applied the court for a violation of Article 3 of the Convention which has to do with “violation of freedom of expression on the grounds of organizing, and also violation of Article 13 i.e. the absence of objection (to the YSK) etc.

SOURCE: MEDIA