The public opinion about the 38th Ordinary Assembly of the Republican People's Party (CHP) on November 4-5, 2023, which is pending before the Ankara 26th Criminal Court of First Instance “Shady Congress” is no longer just an internal party dispute. This trial investigates whether the will of the delegates was manipulated through material interests during the convention process.
In addition, the Istanbul 40th High Criminal Court “Ekrem Imamoglu Criminal Organization for Profit” There are material points of contact with the file known as the indictment. Although these two files are formally separate, the grounds of the allegations are the same and focus on the crippling of the party will.
I testified as a witness in this case. The testimony is not a statement of opinion; it is an account of the material facts investigated by the prosecution. However, the course of the case is not limited to witness statements.
Pattern of Witnesses, Not Number of Witnesses
The indictment includes the statements of 12-13 witnesses. It is planned that all of these witnesses will be heard in Court.
The point to note here is the following: The allegations are not based on a single person's account. They are based on statements made at different times by people in different positions;
Offers of benefits to delegates,
Promises linked to the municipality,
Explanations on money traffic,
Allegations of will manipulation during the congress process
are articulated within a common framework.
The number of witnesses is not decisive in criminal proceedings. However, the fact that the statements complement each other and form a common narrative space broadens the Court's field of inquiry.
Witness Statements and Material Evidence
The case file is not based solely on oral testimony.
Indictment;
MASAK reports,
Bank transactions,
Land registry and Social Security records,
HTS data,
Official institution correspondence
such as financial and technical evidence.
The court continues to gather evidence. Subpoenas are being written, institutional records are being requested and links between files are being investigated.
This table shows the following: Witness statements will not be evaluated in isolation, but in conjunction with the material evidence field.
In criminal proceedings, the legal value of a statement does not arise from the strength of the narrative, but from its consistency with the data. If there is a consistency between the narrative and the financial and technical findings, this will be taken into account by the court; if not, it will be revealed in the trial.
The law does not work with slogans, as some people think; it works with consistency and reaches conclusions based on concrete evidence.
Common Language of Defense: Denial and Normalization
The line of defense that emerged during the hearings is striking. The defenses are generally concentrated on three lines:
1. Allegation that witness statements are “slanderous”,
2. The narrative that the file is “political”,
3. Normalization that interest relations are inherent in politics.
There were even statements on the defense side that politics is a team effort and that similar support was experienced in other parties.
However, the defense of “others do it too” is not a legal justification in criminal proceedings. The fact that an act is committed elsewhere does not eliminate the criminal nature of that act.
The shift of the debate to this point indicates an important intellectual transformation:
The issue is no longer “whether it happened or not”, but “even if it happened, whether it is a crime or not”.
This is a normalization strategy that obscures the alleged perversion of will at the heart of the proceedings.
Liaison Between Files
The letter from the Ankara 26th Criminal Court of First Instance to the Istanbul 40th Assize Court is not a technical detail. It means that the material connection is being investigated.
While the Ankara case examines allegations of interest in the congress process, the Istanbul 40th Assize Case alleges that the financial and organizational structure allegedly established through municipalities serves to control intra-party power.
These points of material contact make it inevitable to investigate whether the cases are legally linked.
The Question of Institutional Representation
The most striking contradiction of the file is the following: The indictment alleges that the will of the congress was subverted. In this case, it is not only individuals who are harmed; it is the legal entity of the party.
However, the corporate lawyer of the CHP undertook the defense of Ekrem İmamoğlu, who is the defendant in the same files.
While the indictment of the Istanbul 40th High Criminal Court alleges that the will of the party is controlled by a certain structure, the fact that the institutional representation of the party is included in the defense of the defendant at the center of these allegations points to an institutional crisis of representation rather than a legal one.
This is not a personal contradiction; it is a structural one.
Conclusion Legal Clarity Needed
Of course, the court will determine the outcome of the proceedings. However, one thing is clear:
This is not just a political debate, but a judicial process in which witness statements, financial data and the issue of institutional representation are intertwined.
There are two possibilities:
If the narrative put forward in the indictments is correct, the will within the party is in serious question and this will have political consequences.
If not true, these allegations must be clearly refuted by material evidence.
This process is a test not only for a party, but also for the question of how to protect intra-party democracy in Turkey.
Because political parties are essential elements of the democratic order.
If the allegation that the will of a party's congress has been crippled through material benefits is brought before the judiciary, it is a requirement of the rule of law that this allegation is investigated seriously.
The law does not work on the basis of political loyalty, but on the basis of uncovering the material truth.
Therefore, the issue is not a matter of taking sides; it is a matter of determining whether the will has been freely and legitimately formed, and without this determination, it is not possible to resolve the institutional contradictions in the public conscience.