The Constitutional Court's authority is not self-derived

With the Constitutional amendment, carried out in 2010 as one of the giant steps of Turkey's Silent Democracy Revolution, the possibility of individual application to the Constitutional Court (AYM) was introduced. Thanks to this possibility, citizens, if they thought that justice had not been sufficiently served as a result of legal mechanisms, that is, if they thought that the decision that emerged in judicial processes was not just, obtained the right to apply individually to the AYM without going all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, which meant a new possibility, a new power, for citizens of the Republic of Turkey. Without doubt, what was sought and meant in this amendment (the intent of the lawmaker) was to strengthen the citizen further and to protect his rights further.

However,

in order to benefit from the possibility of individual application to the AYM, it had been deemed necessary that all administrative and judicial remedies provided by law be exhausted.

Moreover, for individual application, it was deemed necessary that a personal and current right be directly affected.

Yet in the case to which the decision it gave concerning

Can Dündar

and

Erdem Gü

l

relates, let alone the domestic legal remedies having been exhausted, those remedies have not even been entered yet. It is a case that has only just begun at the indictment stage, and the allegations are extremely serious.

Judging by the attempt to give the matter another armor of immunity under the guise of journalism, the judiciary is facing a far graver, far more organized espionage crime network with international dimensions as well.

The details of such a case concern everyone living in this country, because, on account of the espionage that has been committed, we are facing a series of centers that have virtually declared war on the country.

In such a sensitive matter, in a case in which domestic legal remedies have not yet been entered,

the decision the AYM hastily gave is no different from openly usurping the will of the nation that gave it this authority in 2010.

This court did the same thing

in the twitter case as well

.

While the competent Turkish courts were handling, nicely and within the framework of Turkish laws, the dispute between citizens of the Republic of Turkey and a foreign company, the AYM stepped in and decided that the twitter company had been badly wronged, openly having Turkish citizens crushed by a global company. Even the fact that the event was launched as pressure on freedom of expression, and that with such an intervention the AYM was projected to the world agenda as a hero of freedom of expression, shows that the AYM is making a deliberate, organized show of power within the event, and opens a path whose outcome amounts to "I did it, so it's done."

The arrangement the nation made on 12 September 2010 to strengthen itself ends up strengthening only the judges of the AYM, not the nation. This is truly a tragicomic situation.

The nation gave the AYM this authority so that the level of citizenship would rise and so that, as a citizen, one would not be wronged, but the AYM now regards this authority as a power within its own domain that it can use whenever and however it wishes.

This was the familiar style of the AYM before the Constitutional Referendum. The juristocratic power that, owing to the unappealability of their decisions, they did not hesitate to use as they wished, can lead them to see themselves above or in tutelage over every kind of rule.

If we accept that Can Dündar is no different from ordinary citizens, then the way should also be open today for anyone who has a case in any court to complain to the AYM about a court he dislikes right at the start and use an advantage. Such a thing is in keeping neither with reason nor with reality nor with the sense of law and justice.

For what quality is this advantage, which would inevitably be withheld from the ordinary citizen, being given to Can Dündar?

I had made the same analogy before on account of another AYM decision that overused its authority. You know how they asked the Bektashi

"is prayer without ablution valid?"

And he answered without thinking

"I prayed it, so it's done"

. Up to now the AYM was making this nation accept its prayers without ablution. The thought that there was no organ, no power that would audit it, made it imagine a state of power in which it was above every kind of rule.

With this decision the AYM has openly shown that it is under occupation. But it forgets one thing. In the past there was no power that would show it its mistake and stop it, but today there is.

The President, contrary to what is supposed, has this power and authority too.

The President, who sees the juristocratic occupation in all its clarity, criticizing the AYM and its decision loudly and saying he does not respect this decision is, by virtue of his authority to oversee the healthy and harmonious functioning of state institutions, not only his right but also the performance of a duty. Those who criticize the President for this are evidently unaware of the role the current constitution has drawn for the President in this context.

The President, by virtue of the duty the Constitution has given him, oversees the correct implementation of the Constitution and the healthy and harmonious functioning of state institutions.

If an AYM that regards itself above the Constitution can openly violate the Constitution, it is very important that it not fall into the thought that there is no power to tell it to stop. The person both appropriate and authorized to make this warning is the President.