The tragedy of Turkish justice
I wrote a piece in this very column some three years ago with the exact same headline above: âThe tragedy of Turkish justice.â I argued that Turkeyâs justice system was a warzone between political camps, rather than being a fair arbiter of disputes. I concluded:
âWe should stop seeing the judiciary as the battlefield of competing ideologies and start to think together about how to rebuild it in a way that really serves justice.â
Since then, however, things have not gotten better. They have gotten worse. Now the judiciary is again a warzone between political camps. In the upcoming intra-judiciary elections for the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors, three ideological lines will compete, and the domination by neither will be good news.
As you probably know, the so-called âparallel stateâ is at the heart of the current political war. The government, and President Tayyip ErdoÄan, condemn this âgang within the stateâ almost every single day and define it as the biggest threat to Turkeyâs national security. They also claim to âcleanseâ the state form this danger, and to carry out a âwitch-huntâ against it, if needed. No wonder hundreds of police officers have been detained and questioned, and it is very likely that new arrests are coming.
But what is the truth about this âparallel state?â Here are my two cents:
I think the âparallel stateâ is not an imaginary phenomenon, although the governmentâs propaganda exaggerates to caricaturish levels. There is ample evidence to believe that the Gülen Movement, indeed, focused on empowering itself within Turkeyâs bureaucracy, particularly within the police and the judicial system. There is also ample evidence to believe that this effort...
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