Zühtü Arslan re-elected as chair of Turkey’s Constitutional Court

ANKARA

Turkey’s Constitutional Court re-elected Zühtü Arslan as its chairman on Jan. 24.

In the voting, Arslan received the support of nine members, while his opponent, Rıdvan Güleç, received five votes. Kadir Özkaya, who withdrew from the nomination, won one vote only. Arslan will serve as president for four more years.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appointed Yıldız Seferinoğlu, the deputy justice minister, as a member of the Constitutional Court, a post that was vacant. The decision of the appointment was issued in the Official Gazette on Jan. 25. But Seferinoğlu, the fourth member appointed by Erdoğan, could not vote because he has not sworn in in the presidential elections last year.

Arslan was born in 1964 and got his bachelor’s degree in public administration from the Faculty of Political Science at Ankara University.

He has a master’s degree on human rights and civil freedoms at the Faculty of Law of the University of Leicester and has a doctorate degree from the same university in the field of constitutional law.

In 2001, Arslan had a duty for the European Court of Human Rights. He also served as a member of the Plenary of the Press Advertisement Institution. In 2009, he was appointed as the chairman of the Police Academy and taught courses on “Constitutional Law,” “Human Rights” and “State Theories.”

In 2012, Arslan was appointed by the president to Constitutional Court membership after being nominated by the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) in 2012. He was elected as the chair of the Constitutional Court in 2015.