Erdogan disrespects Turkey’s top court
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says a decision of Turkey’s Constitutional Court, which could be responsible for dealing with corruption allegations against his administration, has “denigrated national values” by overturning his ban on Twitter.
On April 2, Turkey’s Ankara-based Constitutional Court decided unanimously that the government must immediately end the ban on access to the social media site Twitter. The ban had gone into effect on March 20, only hours after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to “root it out.”
On April 4, Erdogan provided his first public reaction: “We have to obey the Constitutional Court’s decision, but we don’t have to respect it,” he said. “While the court sided with an American company in this decision, it denigrated our national values.”
Riza Turmen, a former judge on the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and a member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), indicated later that day that he was puzzled by the prime minister’s remarks, and wondered whether "our national values trump human rights and the rule of law.” At a news conference at the Turkish parliament, Turmen said, “One may dislike a court decision, but all have to respect the decisions taken by the courts. The judiciary inevitably has a role to put the brakes on the political authority.”
The same day, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag backed the prime minister. “No one can apply to the Constitutional Court before exhausting their chances in the lower courts,” Bozdag said. “Unfortunately, the Constitutional Court violated this principle and acted outside its legitimate boundaries.”
