MILLIYET- Columnist Taha Akyol comments on the relationship between politics and the law. A summary of his column is as follows:
Justice and Development Party (AKP) Secretary-General Ertugrul Yalcinbayir this week said, ‘Amending Article 109 of the Constitution is not on our agenda.’ Saying that some are suggesting that a prime minister could be appointed from outside the Parliament through amending Article 109 and that this issue was still being discussed, Yalcinbayir added, ‘We saw that there was no consensus on this issue, so we didn’t dwell on it.’ Yalcinbayir also said, ‘We [the AKP] are the majority. However, we don’t think that we can do whatever we want. We will decide on important issues by consulting with the parties, non-governmental organizations [NGOs] and various governmental institutions. For example, some governmental institutions wouldn’t welcome amendments to Article 90.’ So the latter article won’t be part of the AKP’s package of constitutional amendments.
In the 37-article constitutional package prepared recently, three articles were left unchanged. The first was Article 90 concerning international agreements, the second was Article 83 concerning the parliamentarians’ immunity, and the third was Article 76, which blocks AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan from becoming a deputy and, by extension, prime minister. After saying, ‘We will certainly curb immunity,’ Yalcinbayir recalls that amendments to Article 76 were accepted in the first round of voting in Parliament -- the outgoing Parliament, that is – but rejected in the second round so as not to open ‘Erdogan’s path.’ He adds, ‘The Constitution cannot be changed for one person, but constitutional amendments cannot be blocked in order to block one person either.’ This is very important in terms of the relationship between politics and the law; the laws and judicial rulings should not be changed in order to rescue a person, but also not to hold him back.
Of course the judiciary can change its mind. When President Sezer was head of the Constitutional Court, the court annulled Article 103 of the Political Parties Law, implemented this decision without publishing it in the Official Gazette, and then closed down the Welfare Party (RP). However, according to Article 153 of the Constitution, the annulment decision wouldn’t be official without it first being published in the Official Gazette. When the Virtue Party (FP) was being closed, the court corrected this mistake and carried out the closure decision only after publishing it in the Official Gazette. Although the situation was the same for both Hasan Celal Guzel and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, different decisions were handed down. The Supreme Court’s Eighth Division had decided that the related prohibitions couldn’t be lifted because in Erdogan’s case, the punishment had been carried out. However, the Constitutional Court ruled that the fact that punishment had been carried out could not be a hindrance to the lifting of the related prohibitions. Consequently, it’s clear that there are certain situations in which politics should be more careful than the law. Both politics and the judiciary should avoid creating the impression that the law is being politicized. The AKP’s giving up efforts to change Article 109 is a step in the right direction.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION