The court took up the essence of the issue yesterday morning on the eve of a recently exposed alleged military plot called the “Balyoz (Sledgehammer) Security Operation Plan,” which aimed to topple the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). The coup plan -- a nearly 5,000-page document -- was allegedly agreed at a military meeting attended by 162 active members of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), including 29 generals. According to the plan, the military was to systematically foment chaos in society through violent acts, among which were bomb attacks planned for the Fatih and Beyazıt mosques in İstanbul.
In late June of last year Parliament passed legal amendments that allow civilian courts to try military personnel during peacetime and bar military courts from prosecuting civilians.
The law allows civilian courts to try members of the armed forces who are accused of crimes including threats to national security, constitutional violations, organizing armed groups and attempts to topple the government. However, military courts are authorized to try members of the armed forces during wartime and periods of martial law. There was mounting pressure on the president to veto the law and send it back to Parliament for further deliberation.
Gül, however, stressed in a statement posted on the president’s Web site that the changes comply with the EU’s requirement that the authority of army courts be restricted to military affairs. The law was approved by President Gül in July and went into effect after it was published in the Official Gazette.
The legislation was, in fact, approved with the backing of all opposition parties in Parliament, but the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) later claimed that they had not been notified about the full scope of the legislative change. The CHP took the law to the Constitutional Court soon after its approval by the president for cancellation.
The government’s move received strong praise from jurists and intellectuals when it was approved by the president on the grounds that it would serve as a landmark step in improving Turkey’s democracy and its bid to join the EU. The law on military tribunals had come as a revolution in civilian-military relations, analysts argue, as such a move limits the power of the military over civilians.
