The effect of insult crime to legislative irresponsibility

Like in other democratic countries, some immunities or in other words, some privileges are granted to the members of legislative assembly in Turkish Law, as well. These immunities are explained in article 83 of 1982 Constitution Act. The first of these immunities is that the members of the parliament will be irresponsible from their speeches during the parliament works and from explaination of their opinions and from their votes and this type of immunity is called as etiher 'legislative irresponsiblity', 'absolute exemption' or 'freedom of expression'. The expression regarding to legislative irresponsibility in 1982 Constitution is as follows: Members of Turkish Grand National Assembly will not be regarded as responsible from repetition and diclosure of their votes and expressions during the parliament works out of the Assembly and from the ideas put forward in the Assembly unless another decision is taken in the Assembly with the proposal of the Executive Board at that session (Constitution, article 83/1). As it is seen, this assurance provided by the Constitution to the members of the Assembly ensures that the members could freely express their opinions during the parliament works and vote in any direction without feeling any concern regarding to punitive or legal enforcement, in other words, it assures the freedom of expression of the members. As a matter of fact, legislative irresponsibility is called as 'freedom of speech' in Anglo-Saxon terminology. The purpose of either the legislative irresponsibility or the legislative immunity is generally not to provide personal privileges to the members of the assembly and thus to make them immune. On the contrary, the purpose is to pave the way for the members to perform their representation duties freely and safely without being exposed to any unreal or arbitrary accusation and prosecution from either the executive power or from administrative authorities and also to unfair oppression and prevention from any majority in the assembly in order to accomplish the public welfare. Shortly, legislative immunities are not the personal rights granted to the members; but they are the mandatory assurances provided for the parliament members to achieve the public welfare depending on the service. In this study addressing the impact of legislative privilege on defamation cases, first the legislative immunity was discussed in general, second the concept of legislative privilege and defamation cases were analysed; lastly The impact of legislative privilege on defamation cases were dealt in line with the doctrine and the jurisprudence in other democratic systems. Keywords: parliamentary immunity, legislative immunity, freedom of speech, defamation