High court ruling demonstrates need for new constitution

Speeding up the government’s efforts to enact a new constitution could be the answer that might curb the excessive power wielded by the military.

This suggestion came from a number of individuals, including Turkey’s chief EU negotiator Egemen Bağış, who said the ruling clearly showed the urgency of Turkey’s need for constitutional change. He said constitutional change was imperative. “If we want Turkey to become a modern country, the Constitution has to change. As long as the opposition continues to oppose everything, we’ll try to do this on our own. We will draft our proposed constitution and take it to a public vote if necessary,” Bağış told the NTV news channel.

Ahmet Gündel, a former prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals, also said the ruling was more than likely to trigger constitutional change. Stating that the ruling was unfortunate in terms of democracy, he added the only positive outcome of the annulment would be the possibility that it will accelerate work for an overhaul of the Constitution.

Faik Tarımcıoğlu, a retired military judge, said he was not surprised by the Constitutional Court’s decision because the court had previously made rulings that were at odds with democratic principles, such as pushing the boundaries of existing legislation to set a quorum of 367 votes in Parliament in order to block Abdullah Gül’s presidency. “This has no basis in law; they acted politically. But this can be resolved. Parliament can sort this out with a public vote,” he said and suggested that the law be referred to a referendum.

Parliament Speaker Mehmet Ali Şahin, who attended a ceremony at the Gazi University school of medicine yesterday, responding to a question on the annulment of the law, said Parliament would pass new legislation to replace the law as soon as possible. He declined to answer questions on whether the reversal would affect the course of the Ergenekon trial and similar investigations involving military officers but said Parliament would do what must be done. He did not elaborate further.

Constitutional Court rapporteur Osman Can, head of the Democratic Judiciary, a platform of liberal jurists, said the court decision left no room for a legal battle against military takeovers or coup d’état attempts but noted that the ruling also clearly demonstrated what needs to be done to further democratize the country.

Can also said the court’s ruling rendered the military judiciary as a general and separate judiciary, something unacceptable in the modern world. He noted that the ruling would inevitably give immunity to perpetrators of anti-democratic interventions. “In short, the ruling has now shown us the limit in steps towards democratization. There is no reason to expect democratic, modern and liberal standards from a constitution that is not the result of a democratic will. Completing work to pass a new constitution is now imperative,” he said, adding, “A new constitution is needed, not a revision.”

Justice and Development Party (AK Party) parliamentary group deputy leader Suat Kılıç said, “The ruling announced by the Constitutional Court yesterday [Thursday] has shown that the Constitution is far from meeting the needs of Turkey.”

He said: “It is impossible to increase Turkey’s democratic standards with this Constitution. In addition to this, it is impossible to make any positive contributions to Turkey’s EU membership with this Constitution.”

The AK Party’s Salih Kapusuz concurred. “All this shows that Turkey can no longer move forward with this Constitution, which is a holdover from the 1980 coup d’état. We see that all our problems turn and twist around and come back to the Constitution. There’s only one thing to do: draft a new constitution.”