Where should we seek that long-sought-after solution that will open up a field of life for democratic politics, take individual rights and freedoms under protection against arbitrary practices of the state and state organs, fortify all democratic institutions, restore parliamentary influence and altogether save the high judiciary and the judicial system from the ideological morass into which they have plunged?As is dwelled upon by all our venerable lawyers and political scientists who have internalized the universal qualities of law and who have never betrayed the law and their conscience, the only way to find this solution is to draft a new constitution. It is obvious that this road is not an easy one; however, we have no other option.
Unlike the US Supreme Court, which has showcased the most recent example of being respectful to universal qualities of law by defending the rights of those who were forcibly held in Guantanamo as a result of the US administration's illegal practices, and unlike rulings made by this court, the Constitutional Court in Turkey has caused the current constitutional system in Turkey to derail and collapse by taking sides with the repressive state mechanism against democracy and individual rights and freedoms. And the responsibility of putting the system back on the rails of democracy and law and to strengthen the belief in law and democracy, seriously shaken recently, is incumbent on politics, the victim of all of what has happened so far. Eventually, it is but a vain hope to expect this from a clique of so-called lawyers who have strangled the law in Turkey with their own hands.
It is now clear that Turkey is at a junction. Turkey will either completely fall out of the democratic orbit and further deepen the current system of guardianship, or it will establish a democratic system compliant with European standards. Turkey will ultimately have to choose one of these as a result of this reckoning phase because it is no longer possible for democrats in Turkey to settle for a semi-democratic system or for anti-democratic segments to be content with a semi-dictatorial system. Turkey will become either a full democracy or a full dictatorship.
At the very least, since a dictatorship will not be a rational system in terms of the substantial demands of democracy and freedom made by great masses of people, what stands before us as an option before a rational Turkey is nothing but democracy. And for the establishment of a genuine democracy, we cannot settle for provisional measures; we need radical changes. For this reason, it is now more than an obligation to draft a new constitution to determine the powers and composition of the Constitutional Court, which has become the greatest cause of this problematic process instead of dispensing law and justice.
No one should doubt that we possess adequate grounds for political legitimacy to draft a democratic and civil constitution. For 60 years this nation has been resisting the attempts of the military, the judiciary and other state institutions to place democracy under guardianship. And the Turkish nation proves at every opportunity, such as at times of general elections, that it will keep insisting on this resistance.
As someone who does not have the slightest doubt that the Constitutional Court will shut down the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) because it is an institution used to perpetrating constitutional contraventions, I am of the opinion that the AK Party should immediately act to create the conditions which will allow it to draft a new constitution without losing any time after coming to accept this reality. Since making such a change in the current system where the Constitutional Court enjoys dictatorial powers is impossible, it has now become compulsory to head for general elections with an agenda for a new constitution.
All political parties that demand more democracy are heading for a general election with concrete promises vis-à-vis establishing a parliament that will change the Constitution, and this new parliament setting about drafting a new constitution without losing any further time will provide breathing space for the country.
In the event that we cannot go to general elections with an agenda of drafting a new constitution, the present process of lawlessness in Turkey will be perpetuated by it gaining strength. And since law no longer exists, arbitrariness will increase and the possibility of any degree of predictability about the country will completely disappear. While the belief in law will evaporate, the current chaotic atmosphere that grows with every passing day and frightens people with the possibility of creating countrywide anarchy will become permanent.
General elections and a new constitution have ceased to be options for a lasting solution; they have each become an obligation.
