According to the judge, both the suspension and the termination of her party membership must be revoked because they were wrongly imposed.
Gündoğan was suspended as a party member on February 13, 2022. This happened after the party received reports about her that would indicate transgressive behaviour.
Interim report
The suspension was announced in a press release the following day. On February 23, the party board was informed about the progress of the investigation in an interim report by the research agency BING engaged by them.
At that time, the bureau had not yet spoken to Gündoğan himself, the court noted. On February 26, Gündoğan’s party membership was finally terminated.
Denial
On March 1, Gündoğan and Volt faced each other in court. During the trial, Gündoğan denied that there had been any transgressive behavior and stated that the suspension and termination of her party membership were unjustified, also because no adversarial procedure had yet been conducted.
In the verdict, however, the judge does not address ‘the question of whether Gündoğan’s behavior was ‘transgressive’ or otherwise inadmissible’. More research is needed for that. “The judge urgently advises the parties to enter into discussions under the guidance of a mediator. Then it can also be discussed how independent research can still be conducted into Gündoğan.”
Too energetic
The judge ruled in Gündoğan’s favor, however, and ruled that Volt “has taken an incorrect course in the whole affair.” With regard to the suspension as a party member, the court concluded that there was “no legal or substantive ground for this”.
According to the judge, there was also “insufficient basis to proceed with a suspension.” It is true that Volt was allowed to take action as a result of the first report of possible transgressive behaviour, but a suspension of Gündoğan without a proper explanation why, without explaining the nature of the complaints and without any form of adversarial hearing “is not acceptable” the judge said.
Insufficient ground
Also in the procedure concerning the termination of party membership, the court comes to the conclusion “that both the correct procedure was not followed and that there was also insufficient substantive ground for the decision.”
From a procedural point of view, according to the judge and the ‘Group Rules’, the party should have taken other steps before Gündoğan could be expelled from the group. “In the event of potentially undesirable behaviour, a Member of Parliament must have received at least two written warnings, in which an improvement plan is drawn up. There must also have been several conversations with the MP, of which a report has been made, and the MP must be able to express his views on the situation in a closed MP meeting. All this did not happen in Gündoğan’s case,” the court ruled.
No justification
According to the judge, there were also “insufficient reasons” for expelling Gündoğan from the group. “BING’s investigation was not yet completed. Note that BING itself had emphasized in the interim report that it was still too early to draw substantive conclusions from the reports,” the judge said. “There was therefore no reason to convert the suspension into a termination of party membership. Gündoğan’s opposition to the choice for BING, or the fact that she went to court and sought publicity, do not justify this, contrary to what Volt argued during the court hearing.”