Constitutional Court Decided that the Competition Board's On-Site Inspection without a Judge's Decision Violates the Right to Immunity of Domicile
The Constitutional Court (CC), in its decision dated 23.03.2023 and numbered 2019/40991 (CC Decision), stated that workplaces such as the headquarters, branches and facilities are considered as domicile within the scope of Article 21 of the Constitution and ruled that the competence granted to competition experts pursuant to Article 15 of the Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition (Law No. 4054), which, in principle, enables on-site inspections without a judge's decision, violates the right to immunity of domicile.
The Constitutional Court, which stated that an on-site inspection by the Competition Board's decision instead of a judge's decision can only be possible “in cases where there is an inconvenience in delay”, concluded that the applicant's right to immunity of domicile was violated, taking into account that there is no such limitation in Article 15 of Law No. 4054 and that there is no obligation to submit the Board's decision to the approval of the judge in charge within twenty-four hours. Upon this decision, which has consequences only for the applicant, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey was also notified for the solution of the structural problem.
Furthermore, the Constitutional Court ruled that the right to be tried in reasonable time within the scope of the right to a fair trial was violated on the grounds that the period of over 9 years between the date when the second preliminary investigation process was initiated and the date when the administrative judicial process was finalized was not reasonable.
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