Justice Ministry striving to find appropriate formula for retrial issue

ANKARA

'Different alternatives have been proposed to our ministry and experts at the ministry have worked on many different formulas. We can’t fully see the future of any of those formulas,' Bozdağ said. AA Photo

Experts at the Justice Ministry have still been unable to find an appropriate formula to pave the way for the retrial of those who were convicted of plotting to overthrow the government, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ acknowledged.

Bozdağ had previously been instructed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to find the path of least resistance in retrying hundreds of military officers and scores of citizens accused of attempted to topple the government.

Filing individual appeals to the Constitutional Court seems to be the most problem-free way, Bozdağ added.

“Different alternatives have been proposed to our ministry and experts at the ministry have worked on many different formulas. We can’t fully see the future of any of those formulas. We cannot foresee what kind of results they will yield when we implement them. If we put a date on the legal arrangement and the Constitutional Court annuls it, then all of the case files would be included in the scope [of this annulment] and may cause chaos,” Bozdağ said on May 29, as he was speaking before the Parliament’s Justice Commission, which has been debating a new set of reforms, dubbed the “Judicial Package.”

The issue of retrial came on the agenda in late December when Erdoğan’s top political adviser spoke of a “plot,” and consecutively prompted the opposition parties to call on Erdoğan to expose whatever he knows about the “conspiracy.”

“Everybody knows that those who have plotted against their own country’s national army, national intelligence [organization], national bank and the civilian rule that has been enshrined in the nation’s heart could not have dealt for the good of this country,” Erdoğan’s top political adviser Yalçın Akdoğan said Dec. 24, 2013 in his column in daily Star.

The Justice Ministry is having difficulty in implementing an “objective criteria” on this issue, Bozdağ said.
“Rulings to be made by the Constitutional Court along the individual appeal process seem to be the least problematic means. There is also the process at the European Court of Human Rights [ECtHR].

These processes are lengthy,” Bozdağ said. Admitting a legal arrangement could offer a shorter way, Bozdağ, still, added: “We haven’t finalized our work, we are going on, but we need a formula that will not cause chaos with the law.”