ANKARA - Executives of Turkey`s ruling party made a verbal defense regarding the closure case against their party on Thursday.
State Minister & Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek and Bekir Bozdag, the deputy chairman of the Justice & Development (AK) Party group at parliament, defended their party verbally at Turkey`s top court.
The defense at the Constitutional court lasted more than six hours.
Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, the chief prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals, made a verbal statement on Tuesday.
Now, rapporteur Osman Can will prepare his report on the merits of the case. The chief prosecutor or AK Party may submit additional evidence or additional defense if they see necessary when the trial is going on.
After the report is distributed to 11 members of the top court, Constitutional Court President Hasim Kilic will set a date to debate the closure case on the merits of the case.
Under the Constitution, qualified majority of votes is required to disband a political party. Accordingly, at least 7 out of 11 members of the court need to vote in favor of the closure of the party.
The Constitutional Court can also rule to deprive the AK Party of financial assistance of the Treasury instead of its dissolution.
The chief prosecutor of the Court of Appeals, filed a lawsuit on March 14th, asking the top court of Turkey to ban the AK Party for anti-secular activities.
In his indictment, the chief prosecutor also demanded 71 people, including President Abdullah Gul, former foreign minister, and Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to be banned from politics for five years.
On March 31st, the Constitutional Court convened to make a preliminary assessment of the indictment and the judges accepted to open a debate on it unanimously while they voted 7-4 on the part of the indictment related to President Gul.
AK Party submitted its preliminary written defense to the court on April 30th, and the chief prosecutor submitted his opinion on the merits of the case on May 30th.
(BRC-CE)