Dr. Çetiner’s Blogs (Dr. Beytullah Gültekin Çetiner)

Constitutional Court Decision for AKP

The Constitutional Court Decision for AKP came yesterday.
The Constitutional Court unanimously decided to hear the case against the AK Party on charges that the ruling party of Turkey has been involved in anti-secularist activities and has followed a fundamentalist agenda. The party risks closure and its senior members including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan risk a five year political ban.

Some people in Turkey are trying to portray the case as a normal judicial act which may or may not result in the closure of the party. They say the legal system is now at work and we have to trust the independence of the judiciary.

We beg to differ especially after seeing the attitudes of some supreme court judges who seem to be bent on closing down the party.

These are the very same judges who last year in May decided to annul the elections of the new president claiming the parliament needed a quorum of 367 deputies to even open the sessions to elect the head of state whereas this was later regarded as a judicial scandal.

Now the same judges all appointed by the former president Ahmet Necdet Sezer on Monday decided that while the Supreme Court should hear the case against the AK Party President Abdullah Gul should also be brought to trial for his alleged anti-secular activities when he was foreign minister in the AK Party government. Four judges rejected to bring Gul to trial saying the president can only be trial for treason. But the seven judges seem determined to go put of their way and eventually vote to closedown the AK Party. So the months ahead may well be a mere formality for these judges.

He only option left for the AK Party is to change the rules at his late stage and make it impossible for the court to closedown the party. So they too have to bend and twist the rules like others are doing to closedown AK Party.

Democracy is taking a heavy beating as some people seem set to erase the ruling party of Turkey from the map and AK party trying to survive.

Ergenekon Case

Ergenekon case is considered to be Turkish version of Gladio in Italy. The Ergenekon gang, a neo-nationalist group accused of involvement in plans to stage a violent uprising against the government, was discovered at the end of an investigation that came upon the heels of a police raid in June of last year that uncovered an arms depot in a house in İstanbul’s Ümraniye district. The prosecutor in the Ergenekon case has said the gang worked to create disorder and chaos through divisive and violent acts so the public would be willing to accept a military intervention to restore order.

“Turkish authorities should resolutely pursue investigations into the Ergenekon affair, to fully uncover its networks reaching into the state structures and to bring those involved to justice,” the draft report, prepared by Dutch Christian Democrat MEP Ria Oomen-Ruijten, said.

The group is suspected of involvement in the murder of three Christian missionaries in Malatya in 2007, the 2006 murder of a priest in the northern city of Trabzon, the murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, a 2006 attack on the Council of State and a grenade attack on daily Cumhuriyet in 2006.

The draft report also strongly called on the government to speed up its reform process and fulfill its promises on sensitive issues such as Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). The nine-page draft viewed by Today’s Zaman is expected to be discussed at the Foreign Affairs Committee in April and to be approved by the parliament in May.

The draft, which is expected to be amended several times before approval by the European Parliament, welcomes a declaration by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that 2008 would be the year of reforms. Another development that the report refers to with satisfaction is the civilian authorities’ success in confronting the military interference in the political process back in April, when the government boldly rejected an intervention by the military in the process of presidential elections.

Welcoming Parliament’s passage of the Law on Foundations granting broader property rights for non-Muslim minorities, the draft calls for vigorous further steps for reforms. Calling the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) a terror organization, the draft says the PKK should declare an immediate and unconditional cease-fire. The draft also took note of Erdoğan’s statements on assimilation, which he made in Germany and which were widely criticized in EU capitals. Erdoğan said in Germany last month that the government wanted the Turks to integrate better in the German society, but rejected assimilation, saying it was a “crime against humanity.”

In her draft report Oomen-Ruijten refrained from using the word “genocide” to describe events of World War I, which Armenians claim amounted to a genocide of their ancestors in eastern Anatolia by the Ottoman Empire. She instead called on Turkey and Armenia to work together to start a process of reconciliation. Oomen-Ruijten, in her previous resolution on Turkey last fall, came under enormous pressure from Armenian groups to refer to a genocide, but she refused to do so.

Zaman newspaper

PURPOSIVE INTERPRETATION IN LAW

Course Credit Hours: 1 credits; 14 hours

This course will examine the concept of legal interpretation. It will begin with the distinction between interpretation and similar non-interpretive activities (e.g. gap-filling or common law development). It will then turn to consider specific areas of concern, including the limits of interpretation and the question of language; different theories of interpretation (subjective, objective, mixture); the purposive theory of interpretation and its application in different areas of the law (wills, contracts, statutes, constitutions). Readings will include Aharon Barak, Purposive Interpretation in Law (Princeton University Press, 2005), selected cases and other legal texts.
Readings
The basic text is A. Barak, Purposive Interpretation in Law (2005)
Class 1: What is Legal Interpretation
Class 2: Non-Interpretive Doctrines
Class 3: Systems of Interpretation
Class 4: Subjective Purpose (Intent) and Objective Purpose
Class 5: Purposive Interpretation
Class 6: Interpretation of Wills
Class 7: Interpretation of Contracts
Class 8: Constitutional Interpretation
Class 9: Statutory Interpretation
Class 10: The Future of Interpretation

Evaluation: Students will be required to write a 10-12 page research paper, which will be graded on an Honours/Pass/Fail basis. Papers must be delivered to the Records Office by 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 8, 2007.Graduate students are graded on the graduate grading scale.
The course description is taken from the course catalog of University of Toronto, Faculty of Law