I’m happy to be able to publish yet another guest post, written by reader Kemal. The guest post published today is, basically, a follow-up to the post he wrote which was published last week. In today’s post Kemal looks at how the EU has responded to the attempt of a Turkey’s highest prosecutor to shut down the Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The main point: EU representatives have no idea what they’re talking about.

Before publishing Kemal’s post, let me say that I agree completely with him and that it has to be pointed out that having a court decide that the party which controls the government is acting in breach with the Constitution is not undemocratic as such. At least, not if one believes that liberal democracy means and should mean that there are limits to what the government can do, despite what the majority thinks. In liberal democracies, we protect minorities against the majority. Let us never forget that. O, and the majority of Turks hasn’t voted for the AKP. A plurality, yes, the majority, no.

Lastly: the court has accepted the case. This means that the AK Parti could be closed down in a couple of months time, perhaps one year.

Here’s Kemal

Times are strange indeed when one’s judiciary is soundly criticized by the E.U. for contemplating an indictment filed by a prosecutor, while it is congratulated for its democratic processes by a liberal Russian politician. Exactly what is it that the E.U. is hoping to accomplish when it comes to the Republic of Turkey?

A draft report to be tabled before the European Parliament claims Turkey’s judiciary lacks independence. The report was drafted by Christian Democrat MEP Ria Oomen-Ruijten, the Turkey rapporteur of the European Parliament. Oomen-Ruijten has announced she is “totally opposed” to the possible closure of both Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party and the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party by the courts. She believes that problems raised by these parties can be overcome by making rapid reforms concerning the judiciary.

In addition, Joost Lagendijk, the co-chair of the Turkey- EU Joint Parliament Committee, believes the court cases represents interference by the judiciary in the political sphere. “We have to be very clear on this issue. There is an intervention by the judiciary into the political process in Turkey,” Lagendijk said. “The judiciary says the choice of the majority of Turks is wrong. This is not acceptable in any way.”

Rapid reforms to the judiciary? When did the Turkish judiciary proclaim that the choice of the majority of Turks is wrong? And, why is there so much hysteria and hyperbole from E.U. parliamentarians about a legal process that, by their comments, they clearly don’t seem to understand?

Someone must remind (or teach, as the case may be) these European representatives of “democracy” that in a true democracy the judiciary is the third branch of government and must remain independent. Threats to rapidly reform the judicial branch government in an effort to sway decisions pending before it are not only fraught with injustice, they are undemocratic. Attempts to sway judicial decisions are also often considered illegal and considered to corrupt the process.

Second, Turkey’s judiciary has made no pronouncement concerning “the choice of the majority of Turks.” Rather, the country’s top prosecutor has filed an indictment against the ruling party, charging it with violating Turkey’s Constitution and laid forth the evidence supporting his claims. The judiciary must now determine whether the prosecutor’s charge is worthy of investigation. That is all that has happened to date and brought the ire of these E.U. parliamentarians upon the Turkish judiciary’s head.

Since when has democracy dictated that a political party, those belonging to it, and its elected officials are entirely immune from the laws and Constitution governing the country over which they preside? Is this not really what these E.U. parliamentarians are implying? Are not the political parties of Europe, their members and elected officials in E.U. nations required to follow the rule of law? Don’t they need to uphold their country’s Constitution?

Perhaps E.U. parliamentarians should lend their assistance to the Bush administration in light of the plethora of lawsuits brought against it for detaining enemy combatants for years on end without due process of law, for eavesdropping on telephone conversations of its citizens without a warrant, and of course, there’s the criminal investigation in which prosecutors finally convicted Cheney aid Scooter Libby and the civil lawsuit Valerie Plame and her husband were “allowed” to bring against Bush, Cheney and other administration officials for revealing her identity while an undercover CIA operative. Perhaps these E.U. parliamentarians are too young or ill-informed to remember U.S. v. Nixon, but surely they remember that sitting President Clinton was deposed regarding some rather delicate issues that arose due to the sexual harassment lawsuit Paula Jones file and in the endless and relentless Whitewater criminal investigation. Clearly democracy in the U.S. is, and has been, under much greater threat and has much greater need for the rhetoric of Oomen-Ruijten and Lagendijk.

And what are we to make of this? According to the leader of Russia’s far-right party, the closure case filed against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is a sign of democracy in Turkey. “I could not imagine any country in the world that would sue the governing party,” said Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (Someone should send him a note about the abundance of past and present criminal and civil lawsuits against U.S. administrations.). “This is an understanding of democracy unique to Turkish people. I congratulate [them].”

While Zhirinovsky’s political credentials are suspect, his comment that the European Union will never accept Turkey as a member, even if Turkey fulfilled all necessary criteria, attributing the reason to Islam and his statement that “Turkey has been struggling to be an E.U. member for the last 40 years. Good luck, but they would not take Turkey. I think this is insulting for Turkey” is worth considering.

At some point, the E.U. will have to come to terms with its erratic and bizarre behavior during Turkey’s accession process, and Turkey will have to decide whether it wants to associate itself with a group that has displayed so much hypocrisy toward, and contempt for the intelligence of, its people.