The new Bakırköy Palace of Justice is a complex of 10 interconnected blocks of 13 floors each, all of which contain nearly 80,000 square meters and is thus large enough to satisfy the most litigious minded. Yet if for one moment you thought this was big, then journey down the road to an even larger courthouse being constructed in nearby Cağlayan. The covered multi-story parking lot in this new Coliseum-like structure alone is 83,000 square meters. It is 20 stories high at the tallest point, although six of the floors are in the bowels of the earth. This building, a sign proudly declares, will be the biggest palace of justice in all of Europe. You think that's big? Then travel to the Asian side of the city, to Kartal, where the ministry of justice is building not just the largest courthouse in the world but possibly the entire known universe, certainly our side of the Milky Way. Math was never my strong point, but I work out that when finished it will contain just a sliver less floor space than the Pentagon. And while there is nowhere to launch an intergalactic missile, it will have its own gymnasium -- and a shoeshine parlor, as well.Of course, the obvious question is whether the state of Turkish justice is in as good repair as the physical plant. The answer is very mixed. One of the most important and potentially sensational legal cases in post-war Turkish history is being staged in another spanking new courthouse -- not in Istanbul but in Silivri. This is the Ergenekon trial, which, as it unfolds, appears to be a calling to accounts of those who believed they could use violence, intimidation, media manipulation and a whole locker of dirty tricks to keep hold of power and frustrate the elected will. For years people have referred to a deep state in Turkey which seemed to be a metaphor for the uncomfortable sense that real authority was not being wielded by the person in the elected office but a cabal behind the scenes.
The latest round of arrests includes the detention of a politically connected doctor who, if the case is proved, drugged Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit in order to bring his government down. I am prepared to believe the worst about Dr. Mehmet Haberal, for the not entirely rational reason that he once attempted to build an organ transplant hospital without permission in a green orchard in the bit of İstanbul where I live (the neighborhood linked arms, I am pleased to report, and forced him to back down). However, I do not know what to make of another of those questioned (but not detained) this week -- the nationalist ideologue Türkan Saylan, whose political views I do not agree with but whose intentions and right to speak her mind I have to respect.
And I cannot help but suspect that the arrest of 50 members of the Kurdish nationalist Democratic Society Party (DTP) is a throwback to the sort of climate of intimidation that the Ergenekon trial is meant to call an end to. It is possible that some of those detained have crossed the line between civil disobedience and violence. However, the move has the Ergenekon-like feel of an attempt to force the opposition into believing democratic dissent is not possible.
And what is one to make of a recent court decision to retry the sociologist Pınar Selek, whose arrest and detention for over two years on remand constituted a great miscarriage of justice? Ms. Selek was acquitted of being responsible for a lethal explosion in the Spice Market in İstanbul which all the evidence pointed to as being the result of a faulty gas canister in a döner kebab stand. The vindictiveness of the legal system which continues to pursue her is a subject to which I must return. However, it is enough to state that, like mercy, justice is measured not by its quantity but its quality.
