The basis of electoral law in Turkey is Article 79 of the Constitution. According to this article, the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) is responsible for the general administration and supervision of elections and its decisions are final.
However, “certainty” is the certainty of decisions in accordance with the law. The unjustified elimination of allegations of non-existence or complete illegality and hiding behind the concept of finality renders the rule of law questionable.
I have filed objections and applications for complete illegality against both the 21st and 22nd Extraordinary Assemblies of the CHP. I have also filed a lawsuit for the annulment of the 22nd Extraordinary Assembly before the 14th Administrative Court of Ankara due to the fact that the documents on which the rejection of my objection for the annulment of the 22nd Extraordinary Assembly was based were not provided within the scope of the Right to Information Law No. 4982. When the entire process is evaluated together, the picture that emerges raises serious questions in terms of constitutional law.
I. 21ST EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS (06.04.2025)
1 - The Authority to Summon and the Authority to Place-Day-Schedule are Not the Same
The 21st Extraordinary Assembly, held on 06.04.2025 at Ankara Yenimahalle Nazım Hikmet Cultural Center, was initiated on the grounds of “rumors that a trustee would be appointed”.
However; the systematic of the CHP Bylaws makes a clear distinction:
The General President may call for an extraordinary congress.
The Party Assembly is authorized to determine the place, day, time and agenda of the congress.
This distinction was ignored; the place-day-agenda was set without a Party Assembly decision.
An extraordinary congress is an “early congress”, not a “congress suspending the rules”.
This is the first basis for my claim of complete illegality.
2 - My Application and the Decision of Çankaya 4th District Election Board
I filed my objection to the 21st Extraordinary Assembly via KEP within the legal period. Çankaya 4th District Election Board rejected my objection with its decision dated 09.04.2025 and numbered 2025/29.
Instead of discussing my substantive legal claims, the grounds for rejection were based on a formal evaluation.
However, my application was not only an “objection” but also an application for complete illegality.
3 - Actual Obstacles on the Day of the Assembly
The day of the assembly:
For hours, they were not even allowed into the garden of the Nazım Hikmet Cultural Center, where the 21st Extraordinary Assembly was held,
De facto denial of access to delegates,
Distribution of “attendant cards” to some people, so that those without these cards cannot access the Assembly hall,
Compressing nomination applications to a tight deadline,
30-minute nomination signature period,
No opportunity to speak except for the Chairman,
practices such as this have been experienced.
Article 16/5 of the CHP Assembly Regulation requires the nomination period to be set in hours and to be reasonable. 30 minutes cannot be considered reasonable under de facto access restrictions.
This situation:
Article 67 of the Constitution (right to be elected),
Article 10 of the Constitution (equality),
Principle of internal party democracy
It is gravely disabling.
4 - Single Candidate Election and Ballot Question
Article 17/2 of the Assembly Regulation stipulates that there is no sign requirement in the election of a single-candidate chairman.
The fact that the delegates were not aware of this technical provision, that all unmarked and marked votes were considered as support votes, and that the perception of a high voting rate was created, made the healthy reflection of the delegates' will questionable.
II. 22ND EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS (21.09.2025)
Unlike the 21st Extraordinary Assembly, this congress was conducted through a “call for delegates”.
I am also about this convention:
I appealed to the Çankaya 4th District Election Board.
I filed an application for complete illegality with the SBE.
1 - Çankaya 4th District Election Board Decision
My appeal was rejected with the decision dated 23.09.2025 and numbered 2025/71.
There are two noteworthy points in the decision:
(A) Wrong Norm Basis
The decision referred to Article 43 of the CHP Statute. However, the concrete case is not an extraordinary congress, but an extraordinary assembly, and the provision to be applied is Article 48 of the Bylaws.
The misapplication of a norm is not a simple mistake; it is a jurisdictional and procedural infirmity.
(B) Same Judge Issue
The judge overseeing the congress election process is the same person as the President of Çankaya 4th District Election Board and the judge who examined the objection.
This undermines the principle of objective impartiality. Visible impartiality is essential in electoral law.
2 - CHP Statute Article 48 and 15 Days + 7 Days Mechanism
According to Article 48 of the Statute:
1/5 signatures must be collected within 15 days,
Within 7 days after the end of the 15th day, it must be delivered to the General Presidency.
Considering the dates of the collection of signatures and the application (04.09-05.09.2025), it is a matter of serious debate whether this deadline mechanism has actually been met.
This issue cannot be passed over without going into the merits.
3 - Simple Majority Calculation
Decision;
Suspense list 1309,
The number of finalized delegates is 1127,
Number of notarized signatures 662
is stated to be.
However, the Party's total number of delegates at the 38th Congress was 1368.
Article 48/5 of the Regulation:
“If the number of the members of the congress requesting an extraordinary convention constitutes the absolute majority of the total number of members, a vote of confidence and an election item may be added to the agenda.” is in the form of.
Without clarifying the concept of “the total number of members” here, the calculation does not produce legal certainty.
This title was rejected on the grounds of “no complete illegality” without going into the merits.
Çankaya 4th District Electoral Board's rejection decision;
- The CHP's delegate suspension list, which shows those who will vote, was suspended on September 14-15-16, 2025 as 1309 delegates;
- The number of delegates to vote in the 22nd Extraordinary Congress was finalized as 1127 delegates by the Çankaya 4th District Election Board Presidency after the objections to the delegate suspension list showing those who will vote were resolved;
- It was stated that the CHP Central Executive Board convened on September 05, 2025 under the chairmanship of Chairman Özgür Özel and evaluated the notarized 22nd Extraordinary Congress application of 662 congress delegates with a single and common agenda and it was seen that the necessary permission was granted by the Central Executive Board in accordance with the relevant provisions of the CHP Statute; and it was stated that it was necessary to decide to reject my request regarding my claims.
In the meantime; while it was publicly announced by the Party officials that more than 1000 delegates gave notarized signatures, it was understood that the Election Board was informed that 662 Assembly delegates had notarized signatures.
4 - Court Practice and Vote of No Confidence
22nd Extraordinary Assembly:
There was no separate vote of confidence/no confidence,
The process continued despite the result of mistrust,
Re-nomination without discharging the organs,
I have raised these allegations as grounds for complete illegality.
There is no detailed justification for these headings in the SBE decision.
III. SCOTUS DECISIONS (15.04.2025-2025/145 and 30.09.2025 - 2025/348)
The SBE rejected the applications for complete illegality. Here, the main focus is on the rejection decision dated 30.09.2025 and numbered 2025/348.
In the decision in question:
The finality of the decision of the district election board was emphasized,
No single justification has been established for the four main headings of my allegations of complete illegality.
The allegation of complete illegality is glossed over with the sentence “the objection is closed” and “the grounds for objection do not include complete illegality”.
Article 79 of the Constitution imposes a duty of supervision, and supervision requires the establishment of a justification.
IV. APPLICATION FOR ACCESS TO INFORMATION NUMBERED 4982
My request for information-documentation from Çankaya 4th District Election Board dated 24.09.2025, which was the basis for the rejection of my objection, was rejected with the letter dated 25.09.2025 and numbered E-62694966-805.02.05-393375.
Reason: The decision of the SBE dated 03.07.2020 and numbered 2020/320 was cited. However, this decision did not impose an absolute ban; it limited unauthorized sharing.
In my “complete illegality” application to the SBE, this issue was mentioned and it was requested that the Çankaya District 4th Election Board did not provide the information and documents based on the rejection process, citing the SBE's decision dated 03.07.2020 and numbered 2020/320; that I need to access these documents in order to apply for “complete illegality”, and that the examination will be carried out after I submit an additional petition after these documents are given to me.
If access to information is blocked in a “rule of law”:
The right to effective remedy is paralyzed,
The claim of complete illegality cannot be substantiated,
The right to defense is weakened.
This is a serious problem in the context of Article 36 and Article 40 of the Constitution. Unfortunately, the SBE rejected my application without any consideration of this point in my application.
An annulment lawsuit was filed at Ankara 14th Administrative Court for the cancellation of the Çankaya 4th District Election Board's rejection of my request for information-documents within the context of Law No. 4982, which was notified with the letter dated 24.09.2025 and numbered E-62694966-805.02.05-393375.
V. ISTANBUL PROVINCE CONGRESS, COURT ORDER and YSK DECISIONS
There is an injunction against the CHP Istanbul Provincial Administration issued by the Istanbul 45th Civil Court of First Instance dated 02.09.2025 and numbered 2025/254 E.
The court, after this injunction;
On 24.09.2025, prior to the CHP Istanbul Extraordinary Provincial Congress, he wrote to the Istanbul Governorship and Sarıyer District Election Board,
On 19.10.2025, before the CHP Istanbul Extraordinary Provincial Congress held on 19.10.2025, again to the relevant authorities,
The court explicitly declared that the Extraordinary Congress of the CHP Istanbul Provincial Presidency and the Ordinary Provincial Congress held on 19.10.2025 should be suspended on the grounds that they were in violation of the court decision.
In the court letters, it was stated that unless the injunction is lifted or modified by the Istanbul Regional Court of Appeals, holding the congress elections would be in violation of the court order and the work should be stopped.
On the other hand, in its decisions dated 24.09.2025 and 18.10.2025, the SBE ruled that a congress process that had already started could not be stopped by the district election boards in accordance with Article 79 of the Constitution and the legislation on election law; the election process should continue.
The issue at stake here is not a “political preference” but the intersection of two constitutional jurisdictions:
On the one hand, there is an injunction issued by the court and in force; on the other, there is the evaluation of the electoral process by the SBE, which has the overall management and supervision of the elections.
Article 79 of the Constitution gives the SBE the duty to ensure the integrity of elections. However, according to Article 138 of the same Constitution, the legislative and executive bodies and the administration are obliged to obey court decisions. The legal debate in this case is as follows:
How should the decision to continue the election process be interpreted in terms of the limits of constitutional authority when there is an injunction issued by the court that has not been lifted?
CONCLUSION
Ben;
- I filed an objection to the 21st Extraordinary Assembly and an application for complete illegality.
- I filed an objection to the 22nd Extraordinary Assembly and an application for complete illegality.
- Under Law No. 4982 on the Right to Information, I made a request for information and filed a lawsuit for annulment upon its rejection.
The decisions of Çankaya 4th District Electoral Board (09.04.2025 - 2025/29 and 23.09.2025 - 2025/71) and the decisions of YSK numbered 15.04.2025 - 2025/145 and 30.09.2025 - 2025/348 did not evaluate my allegations of complete illegality by going into the merits and providing justifications for each title.
The SBE's decisions regarding the Istanbul Provincial Congresses, on the other hand, did not clearly and in detail reveal the constitutional relationship between the injunctions issued by the court and in force, and the savings regarding the continuation of the electoral process; this situation has led to a serious debate on how to interpret the hierarchical and functional relationship between the norms.
Article 79 of the Constitution gives the SBE the duty to ensure and supervise the integrity of elections.
However, within the same constitutional system, there is an obligation to comply with court decisions under Article 138.
The problem that arises at the intersection of these two norms is not a question of “which institution is superior”, but how to interpret the constitutional limits of authority together.
Finality is not a substitute for reasoning. Finality is a characteristic of decisions with legally compliant and reviewable reasoning.
If there is an allegation of complete illegality, the answer should be “no reason”.
If the court measure does not affect the electoral process, the constitutional basis for this should be clearly demonstrated.
The rule of law survives not by suppressing questions, but by answering them with reason.
This process, which emerged in the context of the CHP's 21st and 22nd Extraordinary Congresses and the Istanbul Provincial Ordinary and Extraordinary Congresses, is not just an internal political party debate; it is a legal issue that requires a rethinking of the constitutional limits of electoral law and the scope of judicial review.