Have you not made the economy rampant?
As soon as the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) election manifesto was released, people from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), from the president to the prime minister, said every day that these pledges would sink the economy.
Most recently, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan also joined the chorus and cited Greece as an example of “what will happen if you spend too much.”
I was, naturally, confused.
Until today, we were told that Turkey’s economy was rampant. With the splendid economy policies the AKP has applied, the country was rich, among the world’s giant economies, and we had given up becoming a regional leader; we now wanted to become a world leader. We already had a “world leader” ruling us.
Now, however, this ambitious a country will reach the brink of collapse just because it will give its retirees two bonus salaries and not tax the farmer’s diesel.
One of these calculations is wrong, but I wonder, which one?
Either the AKP has not made this country’s economy as rampant as it claims for 12 years, or there is actually money available to give the country’s retirees and farmers but they do not want to give it to them.
Another coup?
We are going through a strange legal confusion due to the cancelation, by the Criminal Court of First Instance, of arrest decisions given by Peace Court judges.
The lawyers of the journalists and police chiefs accused of being “parallel” have challenged the judges who decided on the arrests. The Criminal Court examined, agreed and decided to release the defendants. The execution of the court order was obstructed by prosecutors. Then a lower court, the Peace Court judge, lifted the higher court Criminal Court of First Instance decision.
Thus, we are facing a “legal coup” once more after the Dec. 17 and 25 investigations. On those dates, the orders given by prosecutors were not carried out thanks to the Interior Ministry and police directors.
With this last decision, we are experiencing a similar “coup” process. A lower court is able to lift a higher court’s verdict; the prosecutors can block the decision of a court.
Our order of law and our legal system has been irrevocably damaged.
As I said many times, rule of law means a state that is bound by the rules it has made. There is no surprise there; laws are known, legal procedures are known, it is known how decisions are made and through which processes.
Now, we see that it is not so.
The power to decide the opposite does not belong to certain prosecutors and judges, but parliament. If parliament considers these ways and methods wrong and illegal, then it would rearrange the laws accordingly or issue new laws which prosecutors and judges would apply.
Prosecutors and judges’ moves to change existing laws and interpret them independently of the law is arbitrariness.
Rule of law does not contain arbitrariness. The 12-year AKP government has turned the legal system upside down and has brought it to the brink of collapse.
First they were hand in hand with their fellow travelers; they made this through specially authorized courts and prosecutors; now they are doing the same thing for the sake of a showdown.
What keeps a state afloat is its strong institutions. If institutions collapse and shatter, then we will see that that state will also disappear.
But the AKP government is not concerned with this. Not at all…
