Obstinate governance

Though it has not yet reached the level of the late Turgut Özal who was famous with his, "What if we violate a constitutional article for once?" brilliant understanding of the supremacy of law, the premier and his party are marching in full determination to set equally important examples of arbitrary rule and thus set some "great examples" for future governments.

The premier’s "Take your mother and go!" remark to a villager in Mersin complaining about the perishing state of affairs of Turkish farmers due to the great achievements of the government in the agriculture sector has become some sort of an adage for those involved in governance as it underscored in all clarity the limits between the ruled and the ruler in Erdoğan’s understanding. In subsequent trips of the premier to Mersin, the local authorities demonstrated how well they got the message from the great saying of the premier. In one instance the same villager was taken under police detention for more than 10 hours "for his own security" and of course to prevent him angering the premier once again. In another instance, the villager was confined to house arrest.

That was of course an exceptional case, like thousands of others in various areas, which should not be exaggerated by some insolent and impudent journalists or opposition figures.

The AKP government and the premier are committed to justice and supremacy of law, when at issue is dispatching prosecutors and police on the residences, bureaus or university offices of the critics in the middle of the night, placing under detention opponent nationalists and patriots for months without an official charge brought against them. However, when it came to some alleged Islamist bandits claimed to have siphoned billions of euros from an Islamist charity foundation, because of the respect to justice, supremacy of law and the principle of equality of all in front of law, the premier and his government have been doing whatever possible to stall justice and refuse to authorize judicial proceedings against the head of an autonomous high board, claimed to have been involved in the sham as a courier in transferring the siphoned funds to the establishments of political Islam in Turkey.

It is not easy to find another example anywhere in the world of a premier and a government, which proudly declares itself the "prosecutor" of a police-intelligence operation and a judicial case on an alleged "organized coup attempt" by some nationalists and patriots, that is the so-called Ergenekon probe and the judicial case, while on the other hand engaged in an effort to stall in any way possible the Turkey leg of a fraud case declared by the German court as the worst fraud case in recent German history.

Why is this double standard or why is this hypocritical approach to justice? Perhaps to understand what is happening in Turkey nowadays is embedded in an answer to this question.

At a crossroads

Last week, Turkey experienced a rather awkward midnight legislative operation, just about 10 hours before the top general of the country appeared in front of the media to condemn as "nothing more than a piece of paper" an alleged "military plan" aimed at stopping the AKP and the Islamist Fethullah Gülen brotherhood organization. While the top general was proudly declaring that investigations by the military prosecutors have shown that there was no reason to prosecute an officer alleged to have written the plan (of which no original was so far found and the entire discussion has been continuing on a photocopy of it), the AKP majority in Parliament added a paragraph in the middle of the night to a draft under debate and empowered civilian courts to judge officers accused of activities against the civilian government.

Such a move, of course, has to be applauded under normal conditions. No one would oppose the trial of officers by a civilian court if they are engaged in a criminal activity against a civilian government or trying to topple a government. But, the way the amendment was made, unfortunately, provided just another example of the obstinate governance understanding of the AKP. In Turkey we have a saying. Strong vinegar hurts its jar first.