Court to consider AK Party closure

Constitutional Court Deputy President Osman Alifeyyaz Paksüt announced the decision to the dozens of press members impatiently awaiting the afternoon verdict on Monday, and stated that all of the 11 members of the panel of judges had voted in favor of hearing the case against the ruling party. The head prosecutor had asked the court to bar 71 people, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Abdullah Gül, from politics for five years. In the case of banning Gül from politics, the court voted 7-4 to consider the case, Paksüt said, adding the case against the remaining 70 individuals had been accepted unanimously.

The Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya applied to the Constitutional Court on March 14, demanding that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AK Party be disbanded on grounds that it has become a focal point of "anti-secular activities." He cited the government's efforts to lift a ban on the wearing of Islamic head scarves in universities, attempts to roll back restrictions on religious education and allegedly anti-secular comments by ruling party officials.

Prime Minister Erdoğan swiftly ordered his party's members not to comment to the press on the case, initial reports said on Monday.

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal in his initial remarks on the decision said he would not be commenting, "The only issue I have on my agenda is İzmir," he said, referring to the vote of an international body to referring to İzmir's bid along with other candidate cities to host the EXPO world fair in 2015.

Meanwhile AK Party Ankara deputy Salih Kapusuz said that the case would greatly hurt Turkey's image. "A step that will accelerate the polarization of Turkey has been taken. In the provinces east of Sivas, the AK Party and the [pro-Kurdish] Democratic Society Party (DTP) are the only parties that get voters' attention. One needs to sit down and think what will happen when you remove the AK Party from that area."

Mehmet Ocaktan, an AK Party deputy from Bursa told Today's Zaman his opinion that the court's decision was politically motivated. "We are faced with an awkward situation. This is bad for our country." Ocaktan said Turkey was doomed to waste a lot of precious time on the case.

The court will now send the indictment to the AK Party in order to prepare a defense statement in one month. Any request for additional time will be decided on by the court. After the ruling party submits its defense, Yalçınkaya will express his technical opinion on the case. Later, AK Party officials will testify in their own defense. Once that process is complete, the rapporteurs of the Constitutional Court on the case will prepare a technical report.

After the report is ready, the 11 members of the Constitutional Court will review it and convene on a day chosen by court President Haşim Kılıç to review the closure demand. The vote of at least seven of the 11 judges of the panel is necessary to shut down the AK Party.

The AK Party, however, is planning to counter the case by introducing a series of constitutional amendments that would make party closures more difficult in Turkey. It will soon send a bill to amend Articles 68 and 69 of the Constitution concerning party closures to opposition parties in hopes of reaching a consensus. But with opposition parties reluctant to support them, the changes may end up being put to a public vote.

The prosecutor’s move to shut down the AK Party is believed to be motivated by a recent change the AK Party made in the Constitution with the support of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to allow the Muslim headscarf into universities in Turkey.  Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday at a meeting organized by his party's women's branch in Yalova, complained that discussions over the AK Party have boiled down to the headscarf issue. "Issues over the AK Party have been focused solely on the discussions over the headscarf. I had not uttered a single word on the headscarf for years," he said.

Recalling that his party's move to lift the headscarf ban was supported by the MHP, Erdoğan termed the closure case opened against the AK Party based over its bid to remove the scarf ban as "hypocrisy."

"We are waging our struggle within the boundaries of democracy. History will not forgive the move to shut down our party," he noted.

Since the establishment of the Turkish Republic, the Constitutional Court has decided on the closure of 24 political parties -- but for the first time will hear a case against the ruling party. Some refer to this particular case as a coup d'etat of the judiciary.