Government and judiciary come together

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met the head of the Supreme Court of Appeals, Hasan Gerçeker on Tuesday.

Gerçeker invited Erdoğan to the opening ceremony of the new judicial year to be held Sept. 7 at the Supreme Court of Appeals building, CNNTürk reported Tuesday.

Gerçeker also met President Abdullah Gül at the Çankaya Presidential Palace on Monday.

The meeting came a week after Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek and Gerçeker made contradictory statements over the law that paved the way for military personnel to be tried in civilian courts. Gerçeker said the law, which was approved by Gül, contradicts the Constitution. He said the opinions of the relevant institutions in preparing such a law should be taken into consideration, also pointing to Gül asking the government to make additional amendments on the law to ease the concerns.

Çiçek said it was not the Supreme Court of Appeals’ duty to identify a law’s contradictions with the Constitution. The heads of the judicial institutions should not talk to the press when asked comments like politicians, according to Çiçek. In response to Çiçek, Gerçeker said it was the duty and responsibility of the head of a judicial body to highlight an issue that he deems incompliant with the laws and democratic rules.

Gerçeker invited Gül to the opening ceremony of the new judicial year on Sept. 7. He also reiterated his views that the judiciary’s opinion should be taken in making amendments that concern the judiciary itself, daily Milliyet reported Tuesday.

Speaking after the 45-minute meeting with Gül, Gerçeker said: “For years, the president has been invited to the opening ceremony of the new judicial year by the head of the Supreme Court of Appeals. I continued this tradition. We didn’t discuss any current agenda items in the meeting.”

HSYK meeting

Meanwhile, the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors, or HSYK, which is working to finalize the appointment list for the 1,500 prosecutors, continued its work Tuesday. The board is working to comprise on the list amid claims that the board planned to change the Ergenekon case prosecutors conducting the Ergenekon investigation, including Zekeriya Öz.

HSYK member Ali Suat Ertosun proposed last week the removal of the Ergenekon judges and prosecutors. In addition to Ertosun’s proposal, which led to a deadlock in the board’s work to finalize a list, objections made by the existing HSYK members against some of the names proposed by the government for being political, also played a role in the deadlock, according to daily Hürriyet.

The meeting was ongoing when the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review went to press.