Opinion / Hannah Lucinda Smith
Rough justice
To be indicted on political charges in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey is, if not quite a compliment, a sign of your importance. That will have been of little comfort to Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, as he appeared on Wednesday at the latest hearing of his trial for allegedly insulting public officials. If found guilty, he faces a maximum prison sentence of four years.
Imamoglu, a potential candidate for next year’s presidential elections, is one of several opposition figures indicted on a variety of charges. Though the mayor’s legal problems began in 2019, his hearing has now been adjourned until November. A conviction would prohibit him from holding public office, a rule that once barred Erdogan (pictured) from office when his Justice and Development Party (AKP) took power in 2002. The current president was convicted of inciting religious hatred by the then broadly secular judiciary after he read an Islamist poem at a rally in 1997.
Today the judiciary dances to Erdogan’s tune and the opposition is in the dock. Since a failed coup in 2016, more than a third of Turkey’s judges and prosecutors have been replaced. Positions in the top courts have been filled by the president’s loyalists, who have overruled acquittals of dissident journalists and activists, and rubber-stamped a decree pulling Turkey out of an international convention on gender-based violence.
Judicial independence in Turkey has “always been problematic”, constitutional law expert Osman Can tells The Monocle Minute. But since a new constitution handed Erdogan sweeping executive powers in 2018, the law has become increasingly politicised. Supreme court judges are now appointed by the president or parliament, which is governed by a coalition of ultra-nationalists and the AKP. “Politics is shaped by the emotional state of the president, which shapes the entire judiciary,” says Can. Opposition parties have become reticent about confirming candidates for elections, fearing that it will trigger legal action against whoever comes forward to oppose Erdogan.
Hannah Lucinda Smith is Monocle’s Istanbul correspondent.