THE ‘MAJORITY’ COMPLEX
Yusuf Kanli
Turkish Daily News
Jan 21 2008
Turkey
Having a majority does not mean having the right to remove main
pillars of a system
The prime minister is definitely right in getting outraged with the
"memorandum-like" statements coming from the judiciary. Rather than
issuing "preemptive statements" the judiciary should concentrate on
the issues in front of itself. What the chief prosecutor of the Supreme
Court of Appeals and the Council of State did separately last week were
very much in tune with the "preemptive strike" mentality introduced
to modern state administration jargon by U.S. President George W. Bush.
If there is a violation of the Constitution; if the fundamental
principles of the constitutional order of the country are being
eroded; if there is a "counter revolutionary" activity, than it is
the duty of the chief prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals to
investigate and if there are sufficient reasons demand the required
judicial punitive action against those individuals, groups or parties
engaged in such activities.
To say the least, issuing such veiled threats and implying that he may
open a closure case with the Constitutional Court against the ruling
party or one of the opposition parties in Parliament is incompatible
with the notion of justice. Yes, in a country where punishment of
intentions has become a routine practice, perhaps such developments
can be considered as "normal," but are not we in efforts to leave in
the past such bad habits anyhow…
That being said, however, the reaction of the prime minister to the
statements coming from these top two courts demonstrated once again the
obsession of our government with the "turban business" and its lack of
interest in the promotion of overall individual rights in the country.
The prime minister, whose outburst the other week that he could not
understand how a prime minister could be sentenced to a three kurush
(about two cents) fine in compensation for describing our fallen heroes
as "heads," now went a step further and declared that the legislative
and the executive branches could not be moderated by the judiciary.
While in essence he was right and in a working democracy the three
powers – the legislative, executive and the judiciary – should not try
to dominate each other but at the same time neither the legislative
nor the executive can consider themselves immune from the judiciary
or superior to the judiciary.
Democratic governance of a country requires cohesive functioning of
these three powers. That is why in describing our republic we say
"pluralist, democratic state adhering to the principle of supremacy
of law."
The prime minister must understand that the psychology of "I have
almost two-thirds of Parliamentary seats; I received 46.7 percent
of the votes in the elections so I have the right to govern the
country the way I like" is not compatible with democracy. Even if a
party receives 90 percent or an even higher percentage of the votes,
there are fundamental principles and pillars of every country that
the political administration cannot touch.
Having parliamentary majority does not mean having the power to remove
main pillars of a system. Insisting on such policies, unfortunately,
may prove too costly…
Farewell to Koryurek
Saturday was the first anniversary of the murder of our friend
and colleague Hrant Dink. He was felled last year by Islamofascist
terrorism. Over 10,000 people attended a demonstration in front of
his Armenian-Turkish Agos weekly to reiterate their demand for justice
and repeat their indignation with the failure of the Turkish state to
capture and bring to justice those who masterminded the heinous murder.
Before the end of that sad day, unfortunately, we heard of yet another
murder; this time the news was about an elder brother, a colleague
who was felled by traffic terrorism.
Cuneyt Koryurek, the dean of athletics news in the Turkish media,
a man of integrity and dignity was hit by a car while trying to walk
across Harbiye Avenue in Istanbul’s ªiºli quarter and lost his life.
He was 77 years young.
The entire media was grieving Sunday the death of Koryurek. But for
us at the TDN, his loss was nothing less than losing a part of our
history. Koryurek was the designer of the original gothic logo of
the TDN when the paper started its publication life on March 15, 1961.
He was a friend, an elder brother and a much-respected colleague.
The Turkish media will miss him. May Allah let him rest in peace.
–Boundary_(ID_z6hd3PqpELP5V4NYglomew)–