Turkish graft scandal triggers feud over judicial independence

January 10, 2014
By Orhan Coskun
Source: Yahoo News

ANKARA (Reuters) - One of Turkey's most senior legal figures warned Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party on Friday that efforts to tighten its grip on the judiciary would breach the constitution, deepening a crisis triggered by a damaging corruption scandal.

Erdogan has cast a wide-ranging graft investigation, which poses one of the biggest challenges of his 11-year rule, as an attempted "judicial coup" and has responded by purging the police force of hundreds of officers and seeking tighter control over judicial appointments.

His AK Party unveiled plans this week, due to be discussed by parliament's justice commission, to give government more say over the appointment of judges and prosecutors, rolling back reforms championed by the European Union.

"These regulations concerning the independence and impartiality of judges ... will be in contravention of the constitution," said Ahmet Hamsici, deputy chairman of the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), in a 66-page report.

"It is clear that this situation represents a contravention of the principle of judicial independence (and) the separation of powers," said the report, submitted on Friday to the parliamentary commission and seen by Reuters.

The AKP bill, published on parliament's website, proposes changes to the structure of the HSYK, the body responsible for appointments in the judiciary, which would give the justice minister greater power over its activities.

Erdogan's supporters have cast the corruption probe as a smear campaign contrived, ahead of elections this year, by a U.S.-based Islamic cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who exercises broad, if covert, influence in the judiciary and media.

The affair, exposing a deep rift within the Turkish political establishment, has driven the lira to new lows and shaken investor confidence in a country whose stability has largely derived from Erdogan's strong grip on power.

But it is the government's reaction, seeking tighter control over the judiciary, police and even the internet, which risks doing the deepest long-term damage, not least to Turkey's ambitions to join the European Union and to its relations with Washington, already critical of its record on human rights.