EU slams Turkish Court’s decision to hear AKP ban

The EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has denounced a decision by the Turkish Constitutional Court to formally hear demands to ban the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) for adopting Islam as its reference.

The decision by the Supreme Court, announced on Monday (31 March), is the latest in a series of clashes between the Turkish secular establishment and the AKP, the moderate Islamic party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gül, which was re-elected in 2007.

The trial, which is likely to last for at least six months, is widely seen as a test case for Turkey’s aspirations to join the EU and fulfil western democratic standards. 

“There is much at stake in the handling of this issue,” warned EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn. “In EU member states, the kind of political issues referred to in this case are debated in the parliament and decided through the ballot box, not in court rooms,” Rehn said, in a clear condemnation of the Court’s decision.

The case, filed earlier this month by Turkey’s chief prosecutor, calls for the AKP to be banned on the grounds that it contradicts the country’s constitutionally mandated secularism by adopting religion as its reference. 

But according to Rehn, this is no reason to justify a ban. In a statement, he said: “Such a measure may only be justified in the case of parties which advocate the use of violence or use violence as a political means to overthrow the democratic constitutional order. I do not see any such justification for this case.”

Rehn suggested that the issue may need to be addressed by deeper reform. “This case has revealed a systemic error in the Turkish Constitutional framework that may need to be addressed through a Constitutional amendment,” he said.

The standoff comes after the AKP was re-elected last summer in a vote marked by a deep political crisis over Turkey’s secular heritage in a country where the majority of people are Muslims. In the run-up to the election, the opposition and millions of protesters took to the streets, with the army even threatening to intervene in defence of the state’s secular values.

In a statement, Turkish business association Tüsiad called on the country to “avoid political polarisation” and urged both sides to “stay attached to the intrinsic principles of our democracy, namely the rule of law and the separation of powers”.

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