Academic

Turkey: Constitutional Court Decision May Mean More EU Trouble

By firstamendmentblogger

Those following events in Turkey, especially the country's on-going bid to join the EU, will be interested to know that the Constitutional Court today outlawed Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party, or DTP.   Prosecutors charged the party with inciting violence and maintaining ties to the PKK, the separatist Kurdish organization that both Turkey and the US label a terrorist group.  According to Voice of America, the DTP holds 21 positions in Parliament.  The ruling means that two of the top leaders will be expelled, while others are expected to resign rather than change their party status to independents. 

Besides provoking additional ethnic violence, the decision gives the EU one more reason to stall on Turkey's membership bid, or as one committee member threatened, to suspend talks all together. 

I do think Turkey will have to answer for the court's decision, but at the same time suspect that the threats coming from the EU are more bark than they are bite.  Turkey's got a lengthy record of banning political parties (24 since the Constitutional Court was created in 1964), which the EU knew about long before the admission process started.  Indeed, in 2003, the European Court of Human Rights upheld a decision by the Constitutional Court to ban the Welfare Party.  That was the party of Turkey's current Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, until he and other Welfare Party leaders re-grouped to form the Justice and Development Party (AKP). 

-Kathleen A. Bergin

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on December 11, 2009 (boomark / email).