5.  The applicant was born in 1964 and lives in Istanbul. 6.  The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 7.  At the time of the events giving rise to the application, the applicant was working at the Directorate of National Palaces as a secretary. On an unspecified date in 2002, following ongoing conflict with a colleague and at the request of a certain professor, M.Ü., from the same Directorate, the applicant was demoted. When she complained about her demotion to her friend, M.G., the latter offered to call professor M.Ü., who was a mutual acquaintance, and seek a reconciliation between the parties and thus her possible reinstatement. The applicant accepted this offer. 8.  It appears that subsequently M.G. made a number of harassing phone calls to the professor with violent threats to hurt his son, accompanied by a ransom request. The professor, in turn, filed a criminal complaint against both M.G. and the applicant in relation to these threatening calls, which resulted in charges being brought on 3 December 2002 against M.G. for threatening the professor, and against the applicant for inciting M.G. 9.  In his statements during the criminal proceedings, M.G. admitted to having threatened the professor, but claimed that he had had no intention of hurting anyone. He asserted that he had only meant to scare the professor, at the applicant’s request. 10.  The applicant, on the other hand, denied M.G.’s allegations. She claimed that, although she had taken up M.G.’s offer to contact the professor to settle the dispute which had caused her demotion, she had never instructed him to threaten or otherwise harass the professor. 11.  On 27 October 2005 the Istanbul Assize Court convicted M.G. as charged, but acquitted the applicant on the grounds of a lack of sufficient evidence to corroborate the allegations against her. That decision, which was not appealed against by the defendants, was finalised on 4 November 2005. 12.  In the meantime, on 31 December 2002, shortly after her indictment, the applicant had been dismissed from the position to which she had been demoted, without receiving payment in lieu of notice or severance pay. It appears that her employment contract was terminated under section 17 of the now defunct Law no. 1475 (the Labour Law), without any further information being given as to the exact grounds for her dismissal under that provision. 13.  On 30 October 2003 the applicant brought an action against the Directorate of National Palaces before the Bakırköy Labour Court, claiming severance pay and payment in lieu of notice on grounds of wrongful dismissal. 14.  On 28 March 2006 the Bakırköy Labour Court rejected the applicant’s application. On the basis of its examination of the case file before the Istanbul Assize Court, the labour court first found it established that the applicant had incited M.G. to commit the offences of making threats and requesting a ransom, and had breached the relationship of trust with her employer. In the light of those findings, it then concluded that the termination of the applicant’s employment contract had been in accordance with section 17 of Law no. 1475. The relevant part of the judgment reads:
“...In their observations, the respondent party submitted that the applicant had incited her friend to threaten and extort ransom from M.Ü, and that she had confessed to the charges against her in her statement to the police...
The court has requested the case file of the Istanbul 6th Criminal Assize Court and examined the entire criminal investigation file. Based on its examination, it notes that the other accused M.G., in his statement to the police of 19 November 2002, stated that it was the applicant who had instructed him to threaten M.Ü. on the telephone and ask for a ransom; and that it was again she who had called him one day and had explained how M.Ü. had demoted her, and that when he had visited the applicant at the office, she had said that M.Ü. should also suffer just as she suffered and that it would be best to threaten him with kidnapping his son unless he gave 50 billion Turkish Liras. M.G. also stated that he had called M.Ü. 8 or about 10 times from the telephone numbers 0212 XXX XXX and 0532 XXX XXX, hence based on the following, the court finds it established that the plaintiff had incited M.G. to commit the crime.
The court has also given regard to the documents submitted by the plaintiff’s employer and finds it established that the plaintiff’s contract had been terminated on the basis of the fact that the plaintiff had incited M.G. to commit the crime of making threats and requesting a ransom.
Based on the documents submitted by the parties, the statements made during the proceedings, the statements of M.G. in the criminal case file, the court finds that the employer is under no obligation to continue employing the plaintiff and that the relationship of trust between the employer and the employee was breached and therefore the termination of the employment contract was just and lawful.” 15.  The applicant appealed against the decision of the Bakırköy Labour Court. In her appeal, she maintained that the labour court had erroneously based its decision on the fictitious statements made by M.G. during the criminal proceedings, in total disregard of the fact that she had been acquitted of incitement by the Istanbul Assize Court. 16.  On 20 December 2006 the Court of Cassation upheld the decision of the Bakırköy Labour Court.