Turkey's Constitutional Court

A "pirate" website for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been launched in Turkey, five months after the website was banned in the country.

With its domain name registered in the capital Ankara, the mirror website "www.turkcewikipedia.org" contains all the content of Wikipedia in both English and Turkish.

Turkey's Constitutional Court head Zühtü Arslan has said a controversial picture in which he is seen bowing down to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was a photo manipulation, noting that showing respect to authorities cannot be considered as imperiling judicial autonomy. 

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said on July 23 that Turkey's Constitutional Court should release the jailed CHP Istanbul lawmaker Enis Berberoğlu based on a February ruling that paved the way for the release of the two Cumhuriyet journalists, Can Dündar and Erdem Gül.

Turkey's Constitutional Court rejected the first individual application related to the July 2016 coup attempt on June 20, ruling out the application of Aydın Yavuz, who was detained on the grounds of allegedly participating in events at satellite company TÜRKSAT on the night of the attempted coup.

A delegation from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), along with several European parliamentarians, gathered in Strasbourg in front of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on May 16 to call on the court to act on the conditions of arrested HDP lawmakers. 

Turkey's Constitutional Court has ordered an investigation into police officers who are accused of wounding a hearing-impaired demonstrator during the 2013 Gezi protests. 

Selçuk Yıldız, 28, was wounded and later suffered from a loss of vision when a tear gas canister allegedly fired by police at a distance of just five meters hit him during protests on July 3, 2013. 

Turkey cannot allow other countries, "especially the European Union to question our democracy", said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday, reported Anadolu Agency.

"Turkey is a country that has made its decision on the subject of democracy and the rule of law on July 15 without any doubt," Erdogan said referring to last year's coup attempt, which martyred 249 people.

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ has said that Turkey's Constitutional Court and the Council of State have no option but to reject the main opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) appeal to annul the Supreme Election Board's (YSK) decision that changed the legal criteria of the validity of unsealed ballots on referendum day.

As if our current issues were not enough, I am concerned that we may soon be facing a legal crisis in Turkey.

 If the country is dragged into a clash with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), both diplomatic relations and economic ones will be harmed.  

If it receives complaints, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will decide whether a commission formed by the Turkish government for complaints on decree law practices has been a sufficient domestic remedy, Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland said on March 1.