EP member calls for civilian courts' full access to military archive

Liberal Democrat politician and member of the European Parliament Andrew Duff was in Ankara earlier this week on the occasion of the 62nd meeting of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee. The meeting coincided with the emergence of the original of the military plot which has sent shockwaves throughout the country, with many circles gearing up to stand by democracy and the rule of law in Turkey.

The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) has denied the authenticity of the Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism ever since it was first published in the Taraf daily on June 12, but with the recent discovery of the original of the document, eliminating the authenticity issue, the TSK’s stance has again become a subject of interest.

On June 26 Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ referred to the effort expended by Turkey over a “piece of paper” as a waste of energy, belittling the document.

“First of all it’s important that the exact status of the document is clarified. The problem is the courts are deprived of access to military documentation. It’s extremely hard for a civilian court to judge the accuracy of a single piece of paper if they haven’t also got full access to the documents of the armed forces, and I think that’s what ought to happen. Gen. Başbuğ should be prepared to open military archives to a civilian investigation by the public prosecutor. It’s clear that the Ergenekon case is a tremendously controversial scandal in terms of politics,” Duff told Today’s Zaman in a brief interview.

Completion of the Ergenekon case credibly and with complete transparency is subject to the international community’s interest, Duff said, cautioning over the tendency in Turkey to see everything in domestic terms, since the case is also extremely serious in the international dimension as well.

“Turkey’s credibility as a state founded on the rule of law is at stake here,” Duff, who served as the leader of the Liberal Democrat European parliamentary party between 2007 and 2009, said.

Hélène Flautre, the co-chairperson of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, believes the latest developments regarding the document containing the military plot once again demonstrate the necessity of having civilian judicial control over the TSK.

“The document incident has revealed that some powers within the TSK exceeded the limits of their authority and devised plans that fell outside the scope of their principal duties, and [were] thus prohibited. These plans should be investigated by the judiciary as was also noted in the latest progress report on Turkey by the European Commission,” Flautre told Today’s Zaman.

Flautre, meanwhile, underlined that the latest development also showed the significance of a law approved in early July that included a change to Article 5918 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), paving the way for military personnel to be tried in civilian courts and preventing the prosecution of civilians in military courts.

The law came as a revolution in civilian-military relations, analysts argued, as such a move limits the power of the military over civilians. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) appealed to the Constitutional Court to abrogate the law.

NATO and Cyprus question

In regards to the Ergenekon case and its international aspect, Duff asserted that the TSK’s failure to rid itself of this stain on its character would put Turkey into an unreliable position as a NATO partner.

“As it joins the EU, Turkey will take part in security and defense policy missions in the EU. Currently it is not able to do so because of the Greek Cypriot blockage. But if ongoing negotiations on the island lead to a positive outcome and the block is lifted, Turkey will be expected to become one of the three key militarily capable powers in the EU along with Britain and France,” Duff said.

“But if there is any sense of suspicion that the Turkish army is [not] cleansed of corruption and it is not completely faithful to the civilian power here in Turkey, then it will not be trusted by its NATO partners. In the case of a greater degree of transparency and greater degree of cooperation between armed forces and the civilian courts, then I think the outcome is going to be substantially better for Turkey’s democratization process,” Duff continued.

“I think it is important that we believe that the prime minister can instruct the army as opposed to the army instructing their prime minister. There’s going to come a time, I hope, that there is a settlement of the Cyprus issue. That’s the time when the prime minister will have to instruct the chief of general staff to withdraw some of its troops from the island. We need to be certain that such an instruction from a prime minister to a chief of general staff is going to be obeyed, is going to be followed. If the Ergenekon crisis is to perpetuate a sense of contest between the army and the Parliament, then we can’t be certain that the settlement of the division of the island, if agreed by the Cypriots, will actually be effective on the ground,” he added.