An Analysis of the Decision of the Turkish Constitutional Court

[mukerr...@gmail.com]

On July 31st, 2008, the Turkish Constitutional Court decided that the
leading political party in Turkey, AKP, should not be closed down,
even though the court found AKP guilty of becoming a center of anti-
laicist activities. The only fine that the court imposed on AKP was
that AKP would receive only half the money appropriated by the
treasury to political parties. The “non-closure” decision was hailed
as “just” and “correct” by the US and EU, and was widely seen as a
“victory” for AKP. Prime minister Tayyip Erdogan went so far as
declaring that AKP should not even be fined at all, implicating that
he thinks that AKP has done nothing wrong.

All of these evaluations lack a closer reading of the decision and
overlook the fact that AKP was on the brink of being closed, but
escaped this fate merely by one vote. Closing a party requires a 7:4
majority (termed as “quality majority”) in the 11-member
constitutional court. In the case against AKP, only one member of the
court ruled that AKP had not done anything wrong. 10 members of the
court found AKP guilty of becoming a center for anti-laicist
activities, but were split on what the punishment should be. 6 members
voted that the party should be closed down, but 4 members voted that a
monetary fine was sufficient. Since the required 7-member majority for
party closing was not attained, the final decision of the court was a
fine, as the 4 members wished.

In publicly announcing the decision, the chairman of the court
underlined that this should be considered as a warning for AKP for
more appropriate behavior concerning laicism and stressed the need for
understanding, cooperation and compromise between political parties
instead of divisiveness.

The decision of the court and the breakdown of the votes confirm
definitely the existence of “religious reactionary threat” that I
described at great length in my recent book. Unfortunately, neither
AKP, nor EU and US circles seem to have grasped that the court does
not approve AKP's activities and wants them to stop anti-laicist
activities. For everybody, it's back to “business as usual”.