Publicly disseminating false information to the public in Turkish criminal law

Abstract

The subject of our paper is the offence of “publicly disseminating false information”, which was not regulated in the first version of Turkish Criminal Code (hereinafter TCC) No. 5237. After amendments made with “Law on Amending the Press Law and Some Laws” No. 7418, which is entered into force in 13.10.2022, a new-released offence has been added to TCC. Article 217/A of the TCC is in third section of the “Special Provisions”, titled as“Offences against Society”, under the fifth subsection of “Offences against Public Peace”. As a quick read: “Anyone who publicly disseminates false information about internal and external security, public order and public health solely with motive to create anxiety, fear or panic among public, in a way that capable of disrupting public peace, shall be sentenced to imprisonment from one year to three years If the offender commits the offence by concealing his or her identity or through the activities of an organisation, penalty to be imposed according to the first paragraph shall be increased by half.” First paragraph includes basic elements of the publicy disseminating false information offence. According to the article, if anyone, who is capable of commiting the offence, disseminates an information that seems false according to objective criteria, the offence will occur. Information mentioned also must be about internal and external security, public order and public health. Before further discussions, it is necessary to mention that the article also introduces a binding element for the act itself. The act must be capable of distrupting public peace. This criterion is not considered as objective requirement for criminal liability, but as an act-dependent element by the autor. Second paragraph introduces aggravating circumstances. If the offence is commited by the offender concealing his or her identity or through the activities of an organisation, penalty imposed by the basic elements will be increased by half. It is important to note that lawmaker does not give the judge any discretion when aggravating cirsumstances are available in the present case. Instead of setting an increase range, lawmaker provides a solid increase rate. In this context, our paper aims to define the disinformation at first. After the definition of disinformation which lawmaker has gone for in the process of discussing the offence as a draft law,1 elements of the offence will be given briefly and, further discussions on the offence will be covered as deemed necessary. After everything is said, relationship between art. 217/A of the TCC and free access to information and freedom of expression will be examined briefly.