The Constitutional Court's verdict on prep schools

The legal regulation that claimed to address Turkey's problem with prep schools, known as "dershanes," entered into force last March, stipulating that the prep schools be closed if they did not turn into schools by Sept. 1, 2015. As an inevitable consequence of distortion in the educational system, prep schools started to be opened as private tutoring centers in the 1970s when students were obligated to take common examinations to enter qualified high schools or universities and the usual educational institutions failed to prepare students to this end. Day after day, prep schools have come to be the focus of attraction with greater importance being attached to them than to schools and the rush on prep schools made their fees equal to those of private schools. By extension, educational costs soared and the concomitant educational expenses deepened inequality in education. Although the major part of people's education budget was dedicated to prep schools, they did not need to assume any responsibility. The social problems that stem from this situation should be addressed separately.

The prep school reality led to the emergence of a second problem. The groups that had political objectives hidden under a cloak of religious or ideological discourse attempted to take a share of this new profit-generating area through their keenly religious and technically successful teachers. Meanwhile, they had a chance to recruit staff to achieve their political objectives by offering free training opportunities for talented but low-income students. For such groups, the prep school sector functioned as a remunerative area for making profits and to providing human resources. The overwhelming majority of students in Turkey somehow went through such groups' prep schools.

Over the past few years the social and political troubles caused by these new groups have been added to the major social demands for the resolution of the prep school issue. The Gülenist organization, undisputedly, constitutes the heart of these troubles, which is why the legal regulation has turned into one of the instruments with which to neuter it.

The Republican People's Party (CHP) appealed to the Constitutional Court for the annulment of the law. The court rendered a verdict after a long time and rescinded the most important article that prohibited the establishment of prep schools. Even though the Constitutional Court has not yet put forward a justification for the annulment, it can be collected under three titles. First, establishing prep schools is part of the freedom of enterprise, second, prep schools concern the right to teach and learn as they are relevant to education. Both rights can be restricted by law, but this restriction must be in accordance with the Constitution. Third, the prohibition of prep schools is unconscionable as the regulation does not aim for a repressive measure, so the law must be nullified.

As such, the verdict is obviously not a decision that can resolve political, historical or economic problems. That is why it has undeniably fallen short of expectations in many aspects and sparked a reaction.

The task of the Constitutional Court is not to set and achieve political objectives and to address the economic aspect of the prep school issue. It is in charge of supervising whether legal steps are within the constitutional framework or not. In any case, where it finds the violation of freedoms, it adjudicates on behalf of the law. This is simply the Constitutional Court's realm of jurisdiction.

However, expecting the Constitutional Court to pay attention to political expectations means expecting it to make political decisions, from which Turkey has suffered much. With this ruling, the court does not hazard any opinion about the correctness or incorrectness of the government's political goal and does not argue that this goal is illegitimate. It just finds unconstitutionality in the method. Therefore, even if the reactions are justified, we need to get used to the court's new role in which it refrains from assuming political tasks, as it should.