Three women judges make last rule in coup-plot case

June 18, 2014 marked two important court rulings, both of which were about Turkey’s problematic history of relations between politics and the military.

The first came from an Ankara criminal court, which condemned former generals Kenan Evren and Tahsin Şahinkaya to life in jail for leading the military coup on Sept. 12, 1980, toppling the elected prime minister of the time, Süleyman Demirel. There were actually five top generals who lead the coup, but three of them have already passed away. Evren and Şahinkaya themselves are actually under continuous treatment in a military hospital due to their old age. After the 1980 coup, Evren imposed a new Constitution, for which a referendum was held in 1982 under the strict military regime; the vote also included Evren’s presidential election, making him Turkey’s 7th president.

This latest ruling was particularly important, as for the first time a Turkish court has tried and sentenced a coup that actually succeeded, not a failed or conspired one. This is a turning point for a country that experienced three military coups during the Cold War, in 1960, 1971 and 1980.

Hours later, the Constitutional Court ruled unanimously that the trial of the major Balyoz (Sledgehammer) coup plot case was “unfair” and there should be a retrial. The Court said that the Istanbul criminal courts that oversaw the trial should have examined the complaints about the quality of the digital evidence submitted by prosecutors and should have listened to the two top - now retired - soldiers of the time as witnesses, after they volunteered to testify.

Adopting the Constitutional Court ruling, the 4th Istanbul Criminal Court decided on June 19 that all 230 convicts of the Balyoz case...