“Everyone speaks against harm to the independence of the judiciary. The independence of the judiciary is sine qua non for us. … However, the high judiciary is not very friendly to the independence of the judiciary. Members of the high judiciary ask the government not to interfere and to leave the judiciary to itself. We are OK with this, but the real threat to the independence of the judiciary comes from the judiciary,” he said on Monday on a live TV program.
The minister further commented on the threat that the judiciary posed to itself. “Take a judge for example. He questions himself when issuing a legal ruling. He asks himself if the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors [HSYK] or the Supreme Court of Appeals will be angry with him because of his ruling.
This is also the case with the Council of State. This is what I mean by the judicial threat to the judiciary,” Ergin explained.
In the meantime, HSYK member Ali Suat Ertosun complained to reporters on Tuesday about growing “external pressure” on the judiciary. He said his board has tried to address the problems of the judiciary, but has failed to deal with all of them because the HSYK is not “allowed to work.”
“The law is openly violated in some criminal cases. We are dealing with the violations, but our efforts do not suffice because we are not allowed to work. The HSYK is not a mechanism that is assigned to protect judges and prosecutors. It is a board that aims to make the Turkish judiciary work better,” he noted.
Recently there has been tension between the Ministry of Justice and the HSYK over a covert move by the board to remove a number of judges and prosecutors from Turkey’s most high-profile investigations and trials. The move led to a disagreement between the HSYK and the Ministry of Justice. Talks over this year’s appointment list of judges and prosecutors eventually reached a deadlock, and the ministry refused to cooperate with the board over the expected appointments.
