No ruling expected before Friday on DTP closure case

The court’s hearing, which began on Tuesday, lasted about 12 hours. The members of the court will gather every day until they reach a ruling; they will be able to ask for information or documentation either from the DTP or the Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Haşim Kılıç, the president of the Constitutional Court, had said on Tuesday that it is unlikely that the court would pass a ruling before Friday.

“We will evaluate the situation and make an announcement on Friday. It is not possible to have something before Friday,” Kılıç told reporters.

He added that the members of the court will evaluate the evidence one by one and thoroughly deliberate the issue in order to reach a verdict. “As you know, there are 141 pieces of evidence in this case and it takes time to make a decision,” he said. When asked what would happen if deliberations were not finished before Friday, Kılıç said that they would continue their discussions until they reach a result.

One reporter asked Kılıç if the members of the court would take into consideration the fact that the DTP does not take allowances from the state budget. Kılıç said they haven’t dealt with this issue yet.

A qualified majority vote of the Constitutional Court’s 11 judges is necessary for shutting down a party. Under the Constitution, a political party can be shut down in cases where its program or bylaws threaten the independence of the state or the indivisible unity of the country. A party can also be shut down if it violates the principles of equality, the rule of law, the sovereignty of the people, democracy or secularism. Defending the dictatorship of a particular class or segment of society and encouraging criminal activities are also grounds for closure.

A ruling in favor of closure could derail the government’s ambitious democratic initiative, a reform drive to expand rights for Turkey’s Kurds and resolve the decades-old Kurdish issue, and increase political tensions in Turkey, already rocked by days of violent protests by DTP supporters.

As the court deliberated on the case, a person who said that he was from Mersin put up a banner saying, “Parties should not be banned, peace should not be interrupted.”

Oktay Avcu was removed from court and he read a statement saying that Turkey’s “peace initiative, which is the second War of Independence, is against dark forces who oppose it.”

Avcu read his suggestions to the court against the closure of the DTP and handed out his petition to the court officials.

Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya had filed charges against the DTP in 2007 requesting the permanent closure of the party. He claimed that DTP members’ actions and statements run counter to the integrity of the state and nation and that the party has become a focal point of these acts.

The indictment against the DTP calls for 219 members, including eight of its deputies – Ahmet Türk, Aysel Tuğluk, Sebahat Tuncel, Osman Özçelik, İbrahim Binici, Sevahir Bayındır, Fatma Kurtulan and Emine Ayna -- to be banned from membership in a political party for five years.

The indictment also requested that the DTP be prevented from participating in elections until the case is finalized; that all DTP members, administrators, deputies and mayors be banned from running in elections as independents or representing another party; and that new members not be permitted to join the DTP.

However, the Constitutional Court refused to implement those measures in a decision in December 2007, and the DTP was able to run in the local elections in March 2009, in which it won 99 municipalities.

Moderate DTP deputies may be banned from politics

As the closure file of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) has been discussed by the members of the Constitutional Court, some alternative scenarios have emerged to determine the strategy of the DTP deputies if the party is banned.

If the closure case on the DTP concludes with the decision to close the party and some of its deputies are banned from political engagement, most of whom are considered as of a more moderate wing of the party, the deputies who are not forbidden from political activities would join the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) which was established last year as “a substantial party” for the DTP. As a second alternative, they would resign from their duties in Parliament.

However, those who constitute the hawks of the party, such as the co-president Emine Ayna, Özdal Üçer, Pervin Buldan and Şerafettin Halis, are not on the list of the deputies who should be banned from politics according to the indictment prepared by Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya, chief prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals.