Getting your day in court

What makes the YAŞ meeting different this year is the lingering question of whether the army will make changes to lower ranking officers and force some of them to retire in light of a recent discovery allegedly linking officers to a smear campaign aimed to discredit the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and taint well-respected civil organizations such as the Gülen movement.

Specifically, the fate of naval Col. Dursun Çiçek, whose signature appeared on the document detailing the smear campaign, will be watched carefully. Çiçek currently serves at the military headquarters in Ankara and was slated to be promoted to rear admiral. However, many believe he will be forced to retire rather than be promoted as the controversy has already taken considerable toll on the reputation of the military in the public eye.

If he is kept in the armed forces and even rewarded with the promotion, however unlikely, it will be seen as evidence that the military is willing to take on a more confrontational approach towards the government and will give more credence to the allegations of illegal activities masterminded by officers. It will certainly boost the scenarios that the lower rank-and-file conspired under the full knowledge, and even support of, the top generals.

If it is any indication, Wednesday's remarks by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan while he was vacationing in holiday spot Antalya, saying this YAŞ meeting is “very very important,” has increased the significance of this meeting more than ever. Erdoğan, who chairs the meeting, may demand that heads roll against the backdrop of the newly discovered plot and the ongoing Ergenekon case, where both active duty and retired military officers have been charged with conspiring to overthrow the democratically elected government of Turkey.

The YAŞ meeting will be attended by the prime minister, the defense minister and the 15 highest-ranking members of the TSK. All promotions are based on a simple majority vote, but in practice they tend to reflect the selections of the chief of general staff. At the end of the four-day meetings, all decisions are forwarded to the president for approval. Therefore, it remains to be seen how much leverage the prime minister can exert at this meeting.

The meeting also comes after a breakthrough piece of legislation adopted by the Turkish Parliament in late June which paved the way for the prosecution of military personnel in civilian courts for attempts to topple the government and offenses related to national security and major crimes such as drug trafficking. It also removed the power of military courts to try civilians for offenses committed in peacetime. We know the generals were not happy about this legislation, which further eroded the military's power over civilians. The government says, however, it has long been working to pass this legislation so as to comply with the European Union membership criteria.

This is not, however, the only reform that the EU is asking of Turkey. EU officials are on record saying Turkey needs to overhaul the regulation of the YAŞ meetings as well, pointing out its decisions should be subject to judicial review. While Article 125 of the Constitution reads "Recourse to judicial review shall be available against all actions and acts of administration," it also denies judicial review to “the decisions of YAŞ." Similarly the decisions of the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), which have been in the spotlight for the last three weeks, are not subject to judicial review, either.

In the past, the TSK had used the YAŞ meetings as a venue to expel officers suspected of extreme breaches of military discipline, including ideological offenses such as sympathizing with Islamists. In recent years, however, the expulsions have tended to take place at the December meeting rather than the one in August. We expect the same tradition will be observed at this meeting as well.

It is about time for the military to stop resisting to government's wish to speed up the EU harmonization process, especially on the issue of opening YAŞ and the HSYK to judicial review. The concern that institutions responsible for ensuring national security could lose control over their internal dynamics no longer holds water.

Everybody in this country should be able to have his or her day in court. If the authorities believe they are justified in their decisions under the law, they should not be afraid of presenting their cases in a civilian courtroom. The law of the land should be binding for everybody, after all.