Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a recent rally of the Justice and Development Party.
The 11-member Constitutional Court voted unanimously to hear a case seeking to dissolve Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) on grounds that it is trying to scrap secular principles enshrined in the country's constitution.
The court's decision escalates a long-standing feud between the conservative Islamic AKP and a powerful secular elite -- including judges and army generals -- who see themselves as protectors of the secularism introduced by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk soon after the 1923 founding of modern Turkey. Members of the elite accuse the ruling party of plotting to turn secular Turkey into an Islamic theocracy.
Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, the chief prosecutor of the High Court of Appeals, asked on March 14 for the AKP to be shut down, accusing it of "anti-secular activities." He also asked the court to bar 71 people, including Erdogan and President Abdullah Gül, from politics for five years.
Yalcinkaya cited the government's efforts to lift a ban on the wearing of traditional head scarves in universities, attempts to roll back restrictions on religious education and allegedly anti-secular comments by ruling party officials as grounds for the party's dissolution. The head scarf ban was overruled by a parliamentary vote in February.
The top court previously closed two political parties deemed to be anti-secular, in 1998 and 2001.
The ruling party has presided over strong economic growth and democratic political reforms since taking power in 2002. Erdogan and other party leaders have denied charges that the party has an Islamist agenda and say the lawsuit is an attack on Turkish democracy. By law, the AKP has one month to prepare its initial defense. The party can ask for an extension, which would be subject to approval by the court.
The AKP has 330 seats in the 550-seat parliament, and its members could regroup under the banner of a new party to lead the government if the governing party is shut down.
But a ban on the party could slow or even derail government policies -- including reforms linked to Turkey's bid to join the European Union.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said before the court's decision that he was concerned about efforts to ban the governing party and suggested the issue could have ramifications for Turkey's EU membership bid.
"In a normal European democracy, this kind of political issue should be debated in parliament and decided in the ballot box, not in court," he said Saturday, according to the Associated Press.
Turkey's EU campaign, which is expected to last many years, is already hindered by French and German opposition and concerns about freedom of speech and human rights within the predominantly Muslim nation.
pmm/ap/reuters
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