Turkey’s Constitutional Court has decided to hear an application by a prosecutor to have Prime Minister Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party ruled unconstitutional on the basis that its threatens Turkey’s secular principles.
We’ve been here before: in 1998 the Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the Welfare Party, because policies advocated by leading members, in particular the introduction of sharia law, were incompatible with the secular democratic nature of Turkey as guaranteed by its constitution. The Welfare Party complained to the The European Court of Human Rights but the Court upheld the dissolution order: the Court held by four votes to three that the Party’s policies were themselves contrary to the human rights principles in the European Convention. The case was looked at again by the Grand Chamber, which in 2003 unanimously upheld the initial judgment. The response of the disappointed members of the party? To reform into the Justice and Development Party or AKP, adopt a more moderate approach to politics, and get elected into government.
A lot will turn on the actual statements the prosecutor has evidence of: if there is decent evidence that powerful party officials are in reality aiming at a sharia state, then dissolution is possible, and the clear approach of the ECtHR in 2003 suggests that would be permissible in human rights terms. But in the absence of real evidence of an AKP “hidden agenda”, I this this latest move by Turkish secularists will probably fail. To want to introduce sharia law is one thing; to want to permit women students to wear the veil and to permit more religious education, which are the most controversial changes the AKP has brought in, is quite another. It seems to me difficult to characterise those policies as contrary to human rights principles.
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