The court referred to the president as a “suspect” and claimed that the judicial immunity of the president granted by the Constitution does not cover crimes he may have committed prior to his election, since the authors of the Constitution should have thought, while drafting the document, that no criminal suspect would ever stand as a candidate for the presidency and thus they neglected to mention the “triability” of the president.Well, the authors of the Constitution have not ruled out the possibility that state officials, including judges, may fall into malfeasance, and the case of the Sincan judge falls exactly into that category.
Turkey is a country that overcame the 367 quorum hogwash; it will certainly overcome this one. But the powers of our parliamentary democracy will be hurt in the process. The actors behind the 367 quorum and the forgotten triability article are the same people -- a handful of old judges and prosecutors who are ready to compromise their own honor for the sake of attacking the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government and the president elected during its term.
The 367 quorum stalemate was overcome by a referendum that returned the authority to elect the president to the public. This was not only a smack in the face of the Sabih Kanadoğlu camp, which used every opportunity to block Gül's election, but it was also a blow to the position of the legislative branch of our parliamentary democracy within the system. It also damaged the credibility of Turkish judges in the eyes of the general public. Now, a regional court is overruling the Constitution, denigrating the president, negating the earlier decisions of judicial organs, raping common sense and claiming that the president has no real immunity. Using the same logic -- that the authors of the Constitution may have not thought of the possibility of this or that crime being perpetrated by people who were given immunity -- we may accuse anybody. This forced interpretation bypasses all the immunity mechanisms of our democracy.
I am not fond of Turkey's system of immunity. But seeing how laws are bent by the very people who are supposed to apply those laws, I think our democracy needs several more years to mature into a goodwill democracy. With people like Kanadoğlu and the Sincan judges, no government will be allowed to perform at all -- unless it is the government of Kanadoğlu and his friends.
Why would a judge endanger his reputation as a reasonable person by embracing such an illogical interpretation? This is a case of generous self-sacrifice, indeed. Why do that?
The objects of the Sincan judges' forced interpretation are the president and the Constitution. Is it a coincidence that both are at the center of two parallel discussions about how to find a stable solution to the two major problems of Turkey? President Gül has undertaken the mission of finding a solution to the Kurdish problem and creating a consensus for that solution. It seems that certain power centers are disturbed with the prospect of a solution to the decades-old problem. The Constitution, meanwhile, is at the top of the agenda of the government and the speaker of the Parliament. It seems that the same power centers are also disturbed by a possible change in the Constitution. It should also be recalled that President Gül's is the post that puts a final signature on any constitutional amendment.
One more thing. Under the current Constitution, the president is a key figure in the appointment of top judges and prosecutors. The Sincan court is trying to create an aura of unreliability around the personality of the president. This will, of course, put a question mark next to his appointments. I am not aware of any critical appointments to be made to the Constitutional Court or to the Council of State in the near future. There may be future resignations that will create vacant places, however, and I am sure Kanadoğlu and his friends are better informed about such developments.
This is not an isolated case of juridical absurdity; this is an orchestrated attack on the personality of the president to discredit him in the eyes of the general public. The response should be orchestrated as well.
