The Constitutional Court (dated 18.05.2023 and numbered 2020/11 E. 2023/98 K.) has evaluated the claim of unconstitutionality regarding the decisions of access blocking targeting the services provided by digital service providers who do not fulfill their obligation to submit the tax declaration and pay taxes related to activities falling within the scope of Article 213 envisaged in Article 7/2 of the Law numbered 7194 which amended articles regarding Digital Services Tax.
The court has evaluated that the method of directly blocking access, instead of utilizing methods such as advertising bans and gradual bandwidth throttling, imposes an excessive burden on digital service providers and disrupts the reasonable balance that should exist between freedom of enterprise/establishment and public interest. In this respect, the court has decided that the regulation is disproportionate as a restriction imposed on freedom of enterprise/establishment and violates the principle of proportionality, and has decided to annul it.
In addition, it was deemed appropriate by the court that the legal gap that will arise as a result of the annulment of the provision would be detrimental to the public interest, and therefore, it was decided that the decision would come into effect nine months after its publication in the Official Gazette.