AK Party Case Resolved
AK Party Case Resolved
AK Party Case was resolved in Turkey. Turkish Democracy is the winner.
Court Rejects Demand to ban Ruling AK Party
The Case regarding ruling AK Party in Turkey has been decided 10 minutes ago. The Supreme Constitutional Court of Turkey rejected the demand to ban Ruling AK Party.
Turkey’s top court warns AKP, but rules not to close the ruling party
Turkey’s Constitutional Court rejects demands to close the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in its critical ruling released on Wednesday. A closure case was filed against the ruling party in March on claims that it became the focal point of anti-secular activities.
Turkey’s Constitutional Court rejects demands to close the governing AKP in its critical ruling released on Wednesday. A closure case was filed against the ruling party in March on claims that it became the focal point of anti-secular activities.
Six members voted in favor of closing the party, the court chairman told at a press conference. Hasim Kilic said he voted against the closure, while the remaining four members of the court said the AKP has shown signs of being a focal point of anti-secular activities but not in an extent to deserve to be closed. At least seven members must vote in favor for a party closure.
“Six members of the Constitutional Court voted for closure of the political party while four others voted for depriving the party of the financial assistance of the Treasury instead of its dissolution. Accordingly, the AKP will be deprived of the financial assistance with an amount of half of the last assistance,” he said.
Kilic said the court decided to cut financial aid to the party. He added “a serious warning” given to the AKP. He urged political parties to make the necessary legal arrangements to avoid any further party closure cases.
AKP has become the 18th political party to avoid closure by the Constitutional Court in Turkey.
Top court rejects closing AK Party
Turkey’s Constitutional Court rejects demands to close the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in its critical ruling released on Wednesday.
A New Chapter in Democracy
A New Chapter was opened in Turkey for Turkish Democracy. As we called this as an Exercise for Turkish Democracy.
A closure case was filed against the ruling party in March on claims that it became the focal point of anti-secular activities.
Turkey’s Constitutional Court rejects demands to close the governing AKP in its critical ruling released on Wednesday.
A closure case was filed against the ruling party in March on claims that it became the focal point of anti-secular activities.
Six members voted in favor of closing the party, while five voted against, the court chairman told at a press conference.
At least seven members must vote in favor for a party closure.
Hasim Kilic said the court decided to cut financial aid to the party.
He added “a serious warning” given to the AK Party.
He urged political parties to make the necessary legal arrangements to avoid any further party closure cases.
Book: Ak Party’s Response to the Indictment
Book: Ak Party’s Response to the Indictment
Ak Party has made the official defense against the Constitutional Court yesterday for the closure case. Ak party has published the “Ak Party’s Response to the Indictment” as a book in English. Ak party had recently announced the recent case as ‘Google Case’. You can find the the claim Google Case in formal manner in related chapters of the book ‘Ak Party’s Response to the Indictment’.
You can get the copy of book from here. The book contains the following chapters.
BOOK: Ak Party’s Response to the Indictment
I. THIS CASE IS POLITICAL, NOT LEGAL
1. In General
2. The Political/Ideological Language of the Indictment
II. FREEDOM OF POLITICAL PARTIES AND ITS LIMITS IN DEMOCRACIES
1. Democracy and Political Parties
2. Universal Standards in the Banning of Political Parties
3. The Banning of Political Parties in Turkey
III. THE CASE LACKS A LEGAL BASIS
1. In This Case the Conditions for Becoming a “Center” do not Exist
2. Our Party Has Committed No Acts Nor Used any Rhetoric Against
Secularism
2.1 The AK Party’s Understanding of Secularism
2.2 Secularism, the Headscarf and Freedom of Expression
2.2.1 Freedom to Wear Headscarves in Universities is Required by the Right to
Individual Autonomy and Freedom
2.2.2 Remarks Regarding Freedom of Dress are Within the Context of Freedom of
Expression
2.2.3 Constitutional Amendments That Are Legislative Activities Cannot Be
Claimed to Be Anti-Secular
3 The AK Party President’s Statements Are Within the Framework of Freedom of
Expression
4 Similar Remarks to the Ones Noted in the Indictment or Even Stronger Ones
Were Made by Various Other Political Leaders
Statements of CHP President Deniz Baykal
Statements of Former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit
Statements of former Prime Minister Mesut Yılmaz: (Annex-9)
MHP President Devlet BAHÇELİ: (Annex-11)
Former Prime Minister and President Süleyman Demirel’s Statements
5 Defending Children’s Freedom of Religious Education Is Not Against
Secularism
6 Defending a Change in University Entry Eligibility Status for Vocational
Schools is not Against Secularism
7 The State Initiative to Educate Poor Students in Private Schools is Not Against
Secularism
8 Votes and Remarks Made Within the Scope of Legislative Immunity cannot be
Used as Evidence
9 Remarks Made Before the Establishment of the Party Would not Bind It
10 It is not Possible to Attribute to the Party Statements and Actions of Public
Employees Who are Non-members
11 The Neutral President Cannot be Included in a Political Party Case
12 Statements of the TGNA Speaker cannot be Used as Evidence
13 The “Possibility of Violence” Claim in the Indictment is totally a Product of
Imagination.
14 The Foreign Policy of the AK Party Government is Not Unconstitutional
IV. THE INDICTMENT IS COMPOSED OF WRONG INFORMATION, DISTORTIONS AND FICTION
1. The Prime Minister’s New Straits Times Interview Has Been Distorted
2. The Unverified News Reports Have Been Used
3. The Language of the Constitution Has Been Altered
4. For Procedural Reasons The Main Opposition Party Cannot Have
Demanded Review of the Constitutional Amendments
5. The Concept of “Religious Community” is not New to the Legal System
6. The Clause of “Reserving Space for Prayer for Patients” Has been in Effect
for Ten Years
7. Only Repetitive Provisions Have Been Deleted from the Council of
Educational Policy Council Regulation
8. Personnel Assigned to the Educational Policy Council Are Not Members of a
Single Labor Union
9. The Allegation of Partisan Staffing is Groundless
10 Inclusion of Statements of Party Members Subjected to Disciplinary
Investigation in the Indictment is Not Acceptable
11. Statements Later Corrected or Found to Be Totally Baseless Are Included
as Evidence
12. Remarks and Activities Disavowed by Party Officials Are Being Used to
Serve as Evidence For the Claim of Being a ‘Center’.
SUMMARY AND REQUEST
Chief Prosecutor of Turkey: Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya
Chief Prosecutor of Turkey: Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya
Kemalists regard him as the keeper of the Grail: Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya, Turkey’s Chief Prosecutor. With his proclaimed intent of closing the ruling AK party for “anti-secularist activities”, he has recently stirred up a new political storm. Semiran Kaya introduces the uncompromising prosecutor
When the office of President was about to be occupied by Muslim Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül a national crisis erupted. The Chief of the General Staff threatened with a military intervention and departing President Sezer quickly appointed a new Chief Prosecutor from his party at the climax of the conflict in May 2007: Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, a public prosecutor who has managed to provoke an even greater national crisis during his brief one-year term.
By bringing charges against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to the Constitutional Court of Turkey, demanding that the party be closed and its officials barred from politics, Yalcinkaya has mobilized the judicial system against the government, the president, and the parliament at the same time. Who is this man and what is driving him to launch such a judicial coup?
The nationalist Kemalist social class
Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya represents the long-antiquated Turkish state. An official of the Turkish state bureaucracy who stands for the nationalist Kemalist social class, an elite class and generation that sees itself along with the military as guarantor and protector of the secular republic and that will use every means possible to cling to its accustomed power structure and privileged position.
Thus Yalcinkaya as Chief Prosecutor embodies not only the Kemalist state ideology, but is also stepping forward as a kind of inquisitor who must protect the republic from the Islamic threat. The charge demanding that the ruling AKP party be banned from politics for five years shows how very convinced the 58-year-old career judge is of this.
Not entirely popular with the folk: Yalcinkayas proposed ban of the AKP. The AK Party won nearly 47 percent of the vote in 2007 | Of course, banning parties is nothing new in Turkey. This tradition has been practiced since 1963, and twenty-four parties have been banned to date. But for the first time the ban targets a ruling party, and one with a 47 percent majority behind it. Nonetheless the petition for a ban did not come as a surprise to many in the country.
The judge, known in the Turkish press as cold-blooded, rigorous, and hardworking, has spent the past five years collecting and analyzing everything in preparation for an AKP ban. When the headscarf ban was abolished at universities, the time had come to submit the petition to ban the AKP.
A family that turned to Kemalism
Yalcinkaya was born in 1950 as the son of a Kurdish-Turkish family in Urfa, one of Turkey’s most ancient cities located near the Syrian border with a high illiteracy rate. The family had a good reputation there. His grandfather was a well-known sheikh and belonged to the Islamic Nakshibendi order.
More formative, however, was the upbringing he received from his father. A teacher, he taught him the secular ideals of Atatürk and sent him away from the religious conservative village Kara as a boy to attend school in the capital. Thus he came from a family that turned to Kemalism.
Yalcinkaya argues that moves such as abolishing a ban on the headscarf in universities indicate a secret Islamist agenda | In Ankara he studied law and soon entered a career as a judge while left-wing and right-wing student groups were fighting each other and the military seized power for the third time on September 12, 1980. At the age of 30 Yalcinkaya had experienced with great awareness at least two of the three military putsches (1960, 1971, 1980). Thus he is not only an exemplary product of the Kemalist school but also a child of the putsches.
The fervent Kemalist, who became a judge at the highest Turkish court of appeals (Yargitay) in 1998 and was appointed deputy chief prosecutor in 2004, carefully prepared the 162-page petition. After all, many founding members of the AKP started their political careers in the banned Islamic Welfare Party (Refah, 1998) and Virtue Party (Fazilet, 2001). But even critics of the AKP do not find his charge of Islamism substantive enough and suggest he is settling a personal score with the AKP.
Incorruptible and stiff-necked
Yalcinkaya, however, had already distinguished himself in November 2007 with the petition to ban the Pro-Kurdish Party DTP with its 20 delegates in parliament, an application that is still pending in the constitutional court. He has also made a name for himself as one of the most vehement opponents of the constitutional draft passed by the AKP to reform the headscarf ban at universities. Yet party politics and party bans are not his real areas of specialty as a public prosecutor, rather fighting corruption.
Even though the graying man with strikingly serious face does not shy away from conflicts and is personally upright and incorruptible because he is convinced that he and his likeminded peers are the true champions of the republic, critics point out that on purely formalist grounds he alone had to submit the petition to ban the AKP as a representative of the shrinking nationalist Kemalist upper class. After all, today neither the military nor the Kemalist power elite have a majority in the population.
But before the Kemalists surrender their power, they are ready to fight out of desperation for “their” secularism, even if this would push the country toward political turmoil and into a very dangerous situation.
Semiran Kaya Qantara.de 2008 Based on a German Newspaper translation