Top court fines CHP for irregular spending


Turkey's Constitutional Court has investigated the accounts of Republican People's Party (CHP) for 2010 and decided a total of 425,306 TL ($188,188) should be returned to the public treasury due to irregular spending from the party's budget.According to the detections of the Court, some party executives used party's budget for personal spending such as the purchase of business cards, smartphones, clothes or motorcycle rearview mirrors.The major irregular spending item was the transfer of 150,000 TL in two parts to pro-CHP broadcaster Halk TV in March and April 2010.It was detected that 12,678 TL had been transferred to a private law firm for personal cases of party executives, while many party employees were given loans from the party budget.The court had found in 2009 that 14 TL was spent for milk and cat litter for "Şero", the "party cat" that resides in CHP's headquarters.According to the law of political parties, Turkish political parties which exceed the three percent national threshold are awarded public grants. The law was amended in March 2014 and the threshold was downgraded from seven percent to three percent.Only three parties - AK Party, CHP and MHP - were awarded treasury grants for 2014 in accordance with the old regulation. CHP received a total of 92,343,259 TL ($41 mln)