Courts and constitutional transition: Lessons from the Turkish case

Bâli, Aslı Ü.

doi:10.1093/icon/mot025

Cited by 20 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…The relative success of the ruling party at the end can be explained by the fact that "the AKP argued that a commitment to the constitutional principle of secularism need not take the form of a substantive commitment to a particular metaphysical conception of secularity." (Bali, 2013:689)…”

Section: Historical Background To the Ban On Political Parties In Turkeymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Fragility of Turkish Political Structures – The AKP Closure Case

Türkmen

2023

ESJ

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For the Justice and Development Party (AKP), one of the most serious challenges in its history was the dissolution lawsuit against the party in 2008. This was not because there would have been no precedent in Turkey for banning the various political parties, but because by then one could speak of a government party with serious social support that had already won two parliamentary elections. Since the founding of the Republic of Turkey, it has not been uncommon for one or another political formation to be banned, but at times they have reactivated themselves under a different name. In fact, the initial, one-party era of the republic was also created by the situation provoked by the founder of the state, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who banned rival, opposition parties that threatened his position. Even since the introduction of the multi-party system in 1946 and the first multi-party election in 1950, nearly three dozen parties have been doomed. These included Kurdish separatist groups, parties with communist ideologies, but also the AKP's moderate Islamist predecessors. It has also happened that the leaders of a military coup have decided to ban some parties, but it has also been the case that in a peaceful and democratic period the prosecution has initiated the same in the Constitutional Court claiming that one party or another is opposed to the most basic republican principles. Yet the case of the AKP was special because, in the case of a party that had been ruling alone for six years, it was still surprising that it was not its political opponent trying to overthrow its power, but the legal nomenclature attached to the old elite. In the second half of the 2000s, the AKP was still taking reluctant steps towards democratic opening, and it was far from the authoritarian style and centralization efforts that characterize it today, yet it can be said that they had fairly stable political positions. Of course, it is no coincidence that several things have weakened the situation of the AKP, and the party leaders could not have felt that they were surviving this crisis in a political sense. There was a chance that the organization would actually cease to function and the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic would be banned from practicing public affairs for up to 5 years. The legal process aimed at banning the party has resonated heavily in Turkey, but has come as a real surprise only to the Western public opinion. The purpose of this article is to look at why the Turks were so laconic about the situation and why it has caused so much uproar in Europe and America. At the same time, it will be possible to see the main differences between Western and Turkish democratic traditions.As the wrangling around the ban of the AKP excited foreign observers more than domestic experts, the literature used for the article was also mostly in English, and only a small number of works in Turkish were taken into consideration.

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Section: Historical Background To the Ban On Political Parties In Turkeymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Fragility of Turkish Political Structures – The AKP Closure Case

Türkmen

2023

ESJ

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“…Later on, disputes arose over the judiciary restricting Islam's social expressions (such as banning wearing hijabs in educational institutions or parties expressing Islamic views) on the grounds of secularism protected by the constitution 40 served as the underlying basis for a series of amendments passed in 2010 by Recep Erdoğan's Dalet Ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) that altered the judiciary's appointment procedures 41 . This compromised the judiciary's neutrality and independence and seated more judges aligned with AKP's values on the benches 42 .…”

Section: The Design Of the Constitutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The 'Method and Madness' of Authoritarian Constitution Making in Democratic Regimes

Sethi

2021

SSRN Journal

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“…The AYM's reasoning that the TBMM vote lacked super quorum was, as pointed out by the dissenting judges, contrary to the ordinary meaning of the relevant constitutional provision and past practice in presidential elections. 167 In 2008, the AYM annulled a constitutional amendment the AKP leadership had passed to abolish the headscarf ban at universities. 168 This was a very controversial ruling, not least because the AYM lacks substance review powers over constitutional amendments enacted by the TBMM.…”

Section: Eu-turkey Relations In Turbulencementioning

confidence: 99%

Limits of Supranational Justice

Kurban

2020

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With its contextualized analysis of the European Court of Human Rights' (ECtHR) engagement in Turkey's Kurdish conflict since the early 1990s, Limits of Supranational Justice makes a much-needed contribution to scholarships on supranational courts and legal mobilization. Based on a socio-legal account of the efforts of Kurdish lawyers in mobilizing the ECtHR on behalf of abducted, executed, tortured and displaced civilians under emergency rule, and a doctrinal legal analysis of the ECtHR's jurisprudence in these cases, this book powerfully demonstrates the Strasbourg court's failure to end gross violations in the Kurdish region. It brings together legal, political, sociological and historical narratives, and highlights the factors enabling the perpetuation of state violence and political repression against the Kurds. The effectiveness of supranational courts can best be assessed in hard cases such as Turkey, and this book demonstrates the need for a reappraisal of current academic and jurisprudential approaches to authoritarian regimes.

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Courts and constitutional transition: Lessons from the Turkish case

Cited by 20 publications

References 0 publications

The Fragility of Turkish Political Structures – The AKP Closure Case

The Fragility of Turkish Political Structures – The AKP Closure Case

The 'Method and Madness' of Authoritarian Constitution Making in Democratic Regimes

Limits of Supranational Justice

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