Court Annuls University Position Announcement Due To Non-objective Requirements

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Upon academic Assoc. Prof. Dr. Candan Badem filing charges against Munzur University due to an announcement for an associate professor position for providing "non-objective" requirements, Erzurum 1st Administrative Court has decided that the announcement be annulled on the grounds that the announcement did not require objective competence and qualifications for the position in question.

Talking to bianet, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Badem has stated that he had filed charges against the announcement as he was the head of the History Department and noted:

"The Higher Education Law regards me as responsible for the academic improvement of the department. New staff to be assigned should make a contribution to the academic improvement of the department. As this falls within the scope of my duties, I filed charges against the announcement".

As the case was still on trial, Badem was discharged from his position on September 1, 2016 through a statutory decree.

Badem: Non-objective criteria describing a specific person

Munzur University, which was called the Tunceli University at the time of the trial, had released an announcement for an associate professor position at the History Department of the university.

The position announcement placed on the website of the university required that the applicants "should have done their doctor's degree in the history of the Turkish Republic and have done studies on the weapons industry in the Ottoman Empire".

Badem as head of the History Department at the time of the announcement has filed charges against the announcement as the "criteria proposed in the announcement were contradictory, were formulated in a way that they described a specific person and were not an objective requirement".

Court: Application does not comply with the regulations

Deciding on the matter, Erzurum 1st Administrative Court ruled on March 15, 2017 that the decision be annulled and stated:

" [...] due to the fact that the defendant could not in a legally acceptable way present the objective reasons for the requirements in the announcement, the court has observed that the practice subjected to the lawsuit does not comply with the regulations"

Asst. Prof. Dr. Ersoy Zengin who later came to Badem's position through the announcement in question stated that he found the court's verdict annulling the announcement unlawful, noted that they would challenge the decision and that they expected the new decision to be in their favor.

(BK/DG)