Military files have been hidden from Turkish political authorities, and they have not yet been able to introduce a system under which intelligence gathered by all institutions, including military documents, falls under their authority.
To do this the government should first be able to write national security concept papers defining internal and external threat perceptions, by itself. Those papers are currently shaped by the influence of the military-led secular establishment, which perceives the public as a threat in general. This is an abnormal situation that needs to be addressed.
Establishing the supremacy of the rule of law is vital in any country in order to enable stability and thus relative prosperity. In this sense, there was a positive development at the beginning of the week when an Ankara court ruled against the military’s request to halt the examination of secret files at a military unit’s headquarters by a civilian judge as part of the investigation into an alleged assassination plot against Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç.
There are no legal obstacles to examining the secret files at the military headquarters, stated the court, adding that, on the contrary, not revealing possible evidence of an alleged crime by hiding behind state secrets will create suspicion.
The examination of files at the Special Forces Command related to an alleged crime will increase trust in the law, it added.
The court verdict is an important step in helping the political authority redefine what state secrets are. We have witnessed on many occasions that the concept of state secrets in Turkey has been used as a shield to keep some illegal activities committed on behalf of the state by groups or individuals secret.
Crimes such as extrajudicial killings, mainly in the Kurdish-dominated southeastern parts of Turkey, as well as the assassinations of many Turkish intellectuals in the past, are suspected to have been committed by those hiding behind state secrets.
The ongoing examination of files at the Special Forces Command and the court verdict that secret files should be examined when necessary has prompted the government to put a bill defining state secrets, which had been delayed since last year, back on the agenda. The bill has been kept on the shelves of the Parliamentary Justice Commission, whose head, Ahmet İyimaya, a deputy from the ruling party, stated that the existing laws have fallen short of defining state secrets and that the bill law is intended to remedy this.
In a country where state secrets encompass so much, one cannot talk about democracy, as İyimaya points out that state secrets are limited in democracies.
Under the new bill, procedures regarding state secrets will be defined and limited. The Prime Ministry will be in charge of executing the law.
It should be noted that debating the bill defining state secrets will be a positive step, but it will take time to change mentalities The fierce resistance shown by the politically powerful Turkish military against a judge’s examination of secret files at the military headquarters tell us that political authorities should exhibit a determined stance in putting into force a law limiting state secrets.
