Top Turkish court orders Prime Ministry to pay compensation to CHP leader

Turkey's highest administrative court has made a landmark ruling, convicting the Prime Ministry over the leaking of a report that included illegitimate records about the main opposition leader while ordering it to pay compensation.

The 10th Chamber of the Council of State ruled that the Prime Ministry was at "serious fault" for claiming and leaking to press illegitimate records about main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal K?l?çdaro?lu. The Council of State consequently ordered the Prime Ministry to pay compensation to K?l?çdaro?lu.

In April 2008, Turkish daily Bugün published a report including some defamatory claims about K?l?çdaro?lu that were allegedly arranged by the West Study Group (BÇG).

The BÇG is a committee of military officials that is said to have monitored the government, keeping illegal records of private information on hundreds of thousands of people as part of the Feb. 28 process that eventually led to the notorious military intervention of Feb. 28, 1997, often described as a "post-modern coup."

As K?l?çdaro?lu sued the newspaper for damages, a local civil court in Ankara issued a writ to the Prime Ministry asking whether the report cited in Bugün's article existed while also asking the Prime Ministry to send a copy of the report if it existed. The Prime Ministry's Directorate General for Security sent a copy of the classified report to the court.

Afterwards, K?l?çdaro?lu's lawyer appealed to an administrative court and sued the Prime Ministry for damages worth 50,000 Turkish Liras, saying the Prime Ministry gravely violated the CHP head's personal rights by leaking to the press a report which should have remained secret.

Eventually, the 10th Chamber of the Council of State...