Top court cannot back politicians, says court chief

ANKARA

Constitutional Court President Haşim Klılıç speaks at a ceremony in Ankara. DAILY NEWS photo

The Constitutional Court cannot be an institution to provide “logistical support” to politicians while carrying out its judicial function, said Constitutional Court President Haşim Kılıç.

 “Constitutional Courts cannot be such institutions either to provide logistical support to political actors, or to block the representatives of the national will while carrying out its judicial function,” Kılıç said at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the Constitutional Court.

The Constitutional Court secures human dignity by restricting the powers of the state and forming a system of balance between individuals and the government, he said.

Kılıç said states cannot protect human rights, international bodies such as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) must get involved in the problems, adding that individuals will be able to apply to the Constitutional Court before the ECHR for right-violation complaints starting in September. “I have to emphasize that efficient supervision of the Constitutional Court [for individual applications] will be possible only if legal reforms are made in judicial, administrative and military jurisdictions. Unless the blockages in the Turkish judicial system are removed, the likelihood of the success of individual application is very low in respect to fair trials,” Kılıç said.

ECHR President Nicolas Bratza praised the constitutional amendments which have enabled individuals to submit applications to the Constitutional Court, saying that it has “a great significance.”

Bartza said the number of the cases filed against Turkey in the ECHR, which is currently about 11,500, will decrease thanks to individual applications. It will also set the stage for judicial dialogue between the Turkish court and the ECHR, he said.

In further comments, Bartza said they are against the dissolution of political parties in principle, but the Turkish Constitutional Court’s ruling of the Welfare Party’s closure became an advisory ruling for the ECHR, creating new jurisprudence. The headscarf ruling in the Leyla Şahin case also created new jurisprudence for the ECHR, Bratza said.

Kılıç expressed his gratitude to France’s Constitutional Council over its decision to annul a government-backed law criminalizing the denial of the 1915 Armenian killings as genocide.