Erdogan trashes Turkish democracy
First they came for the journalists, and then they came for the judges.
Examples of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s war against a free press are legion, beginning more than a decade ago when he served as the Turkish prime minister. In 2012 and 2013, Turkey was the leading jailer of journalists in the world.
Earlier this month, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that Erdogan’s crackdown on the media over the past four years had “reached an unprecedented intensity” through the use of vague, broadly worded anti-terror laws to investigate and prosecute media outlets; the bringing of charges under laws that carry jail sentences for “insulting the President” (Erdogan has been president since 2014); the storming of opposition media offices, and the banning of reporting on sensitive matters including terrorist attacks and manmade disasters.
In February the Constitutional Court of Turkey freed two prominent journalists on bail from a Turkish detention center pending their trial. The crime for which they were charged involved reporting on and releasing a video purporting to show Turkish intelligence delivering arms to Islamist rebels in Syria, which the court opined was probably not a crime at all. Erdogan went, well, ballistic about the court’s ruling, declaring, “I don’t obey or accept the decision.”
This was not the first confrontation between the Constitutional Court and Erdogan. In early 2014 following reports of a corruption probe into his family, Erdogan ordered access to Twitter in Turkey blocked, threatening to “rip out the roots” of the microblogging site. He then put severe restrictions on YouTube. Both actions were declared a violation of the freedom of expression provisions of the Turkish Constitution. By then it had become clear that the constitution and an independent judiciary posed significant impediments to an autocrat, and Erdogan’s crusade against both began.
First, he took control of the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors, whose powers included the “assignment” of judges and prosecutors. Then the High Council began reassigning thousands of judges and prosecutors, some repeatedly — tearing apart families and disrupting the professional relationships and career opportunities of those the Erdogan government suspected might not bend to its will. Judges on the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Turkey were, however, technically immune to the reassignment power. Thus the need for a final purge.
The opportunity fully presented itself during the short-lived attempted coup two weeks ago Hours after the gunfire ended, Erdogan directed that 2,745 judges and prosecutors be summarily dismissed. Arrest warrants and the massive detention of judges began, including judges on the Supreme Court, and at least two judges on the Constitutional Court. The constitution was “suspended” for the arrestees, among others, and edicts of the president were declared to be unappealable. On Wednesday, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe declared that the dismissal of judges, including those on the Constitutional and Supreme Courts of Turkey, without any evidentiary requirements and their prolonged detention (up to 30 days) without access to a court (and restricted access to a lawyer) were incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. This followed a call by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers to release and reinstate the judges and prosecutors summarily dismissed, “until credible allegations of wrongdoing are properly investigated and evidenced.”
It is impossible to know if Erdogan will accede to the observations and declarations of these international bodies. What history tells us is that judicial independence and a free press are indispensable to a free society and successful constitutional democracy. And that any force that can destroy the one can probably destroy the other. So it seems in Turkey, a constitutional democracy no more.