Speaking at the appointment of new judges and prosecutors on Tuesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hailed a new package of laws expected to be approved by Parliament soon. He pledged to introduce more steps to bolster the work of the judiciary. Erdoğan, who hosted prospective jurists at the Presidential Complex, also highlighted a dispute between Türkiye’s top courts and said that as the government, they would adhere to neutrality and look for ways to resolve it.
Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party) accentuated "justice" in its name by introducing a series of judicial reforms in the past two decades, but the government’s steps mostly involve patching up a Constitution drafted by the 1980 military junta. Erdoğan often calls for a new, "civilian" constitution to resolve judicial problems and reiterated it at Tuesday’s event. This time, Erdoğan pointed out the conflict between Türkiye’s higher judicial authorities, namely the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court, which surfaced over an argument on the imprisonment of a man elected as a lawmaker from an opposition party.
Erdoğan said a unanimous vote at the Parliament (whose majority was retained by the AK Party) would solve the problem of the dated Constitution. "Even without a new constitution, we will seek consensus on amendments to resolve the dispute between the courts. We have to end this debate that harms the judiciary," Erdoğan said. He reiterated that as the executive branch of the state, the government is merely "a mediator" in this dispute. Erdoğan has earlier announced his dissatisfaction with several rulings of the Constitutional Court but always stressed that they would respect the rule of law.
Since 1982, the current Constitution, drafted following a military coup, has seen several amendments. The bloody 1980 coup, which led to the detention of hundreds of thousands of people along with mass trials, torture and executions, still represents a dark period in Turkish political history.
The proposed changes focus on the topics of freedom, the right to security, the right to a fair trial, freedom of speech as well as the rights of women and the disabled. The enhancement of these rights and liberties has seen setbacks in the bureaucracy that have prevented these rights and liberties from being implemented properly. The plan has been prepared in accordance with the observations and reports of the international mechanisms that monitor human rights in cooperation with several human rights groups.
Some of the other principles of the plan are human dignity, as the essence of all rights, under the active protection of the law; the equal, impartial and honest provision of public services to everyone; the rule of law shall be fortified in all areas as a safeguard for rights and freedoms, and no one may be deprived of liberty due to criticism or expression of thought.
The president said that the AK Party governments took upon challenges in the field to transform judicial authorities, "which, at times in the past, bowed down to single-party fascism, military tutelage and the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ)." He referred to the so-called "postmodern coup" of 1997 and its aftermath that led to the collapse of the government through politically motivated trials and a witch hunt by prosecutors against pious Muslims, including Erdoğan himself. He also recalled how FETÖ, through its infiltrators in the judiciary, sought to oust his government through trials and investigations based on trumped-up charges.
He acknowledged that the judiciary had problems stemming from different approaches between different institutions. He said they were looking to improve "legal infrastructure," citing a 2009 "vision document" that is gradually being implemented. "The eight judiciary package of laws is part of this effort," he underlined. The package amends the period of appeals to court verdicts and updates administrative fines for certain crimes and misdemeanors.