PACE INVITES BABACAN TO URGENT SESSION
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
June 11 2008
EMRE DEMÄ°R, SERVET YANATMA STRASBOURG, ANKARA
Parliamentarians at Europe’s human rights watchdog, the Council of
Europe, are preparing to discuss an ongoing closure case against
Turkey’s ruling party at an urgent session later this month, and they
announced yesterday that Foreign Minister Ali Babacan has also been
invited to the critical gathering, which observers fear could result
in a decision to put Turkey back on a list of countries that require
monitoring of their democratic practices.
The proposal to hold an urgent meeting came after a state prosecutor
asked the Constitutional Court in March to close down the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AK Party) on charges of becoming a
"focal point for anti-secular activities." The proposal was introduced
at the initiative of the heads of the assembly’s five political groups
and approved by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE) Bureau during a recent meeting on May 29.
As of yesterday afternoon, officials at the Foreign Ministry were
not able to say whether Babacan would accept the invitation by
Strasbourg. The same officials, however, emphasized that the issue
is being followed by Ankara "at highest level as a state affair."
Mevlut CavuÅ~_oglu, an AK Party member and the head of the Turkish
delegation to PACE, said Turkish parliamentarians have been exerting
intense efforts for preventing a possible monitoring decision.
A monitoring process will do serious damage to Turkey and it will be
more difficult to get released from that process compared to the past,
CavuÅ~_oglu told Today’s Zaman, noting that he believed that PACE is
not aiming to punish Turkey. They aim to help Turkey "overcome ongoing
problems without crisis," he added, reiterating that the idea of an
urgent debate has not been welcomed at all by Turkey.
"If a decision for holding an urgent debate on a particular country
is made, the possibility of that country being put under monitoring
procedure is high," Luc Van den Brande, a Belgian member of PACE,
told Today’s Zaman, noting that the most important reason for holding
the debate was the closure case against the AK Party.
Last week, Turkey’s Constitutional Court overturned a constitutional
amendment that would have ended a ban on the Muslim headscarf in
universities, a move that has widely been interpreted as indicating
that the court is positioning itself above Parliament as a legislative
organ. The headscarf ruling will play a central role in the closure
case against the AK Party — which has been in power since 2002 and was
re-elected last July with an overwhelming 47 percent of the popular
vote — on charges of anti-secular activities. The chief prosecutor
of the Supreme Court of Appeals, who filed the case, is also seeking
to ban 71 AK Party members, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, as well as President Abdullah Gul, from belonging to a
political party for five years.
In June 2004 PACE decided to end the monitoring of Turkey, declaring
that the country had "achieved more reform in a little over two
years than in the previous decade" and had clearly demonstrated its
commitment and ability to fulfill its statutory obligations as a
member state of the Council of Europe. Then, the assembly resolved
to continue "post-monitoring dialogue" with Turkish authorities on
a twelve-point list of outstanding issues. Only two other countries,
Bulgaria and Macedonia, are in the process of post-monitoring dialogue.
Turkey has been a member of the Council of Europe since 1949, when
it undertook to honor obligations concerning pluralist democracy, the
rule of law and human rights enshrined in the organization’s founding
statute. The assembly’s monitoring procedure — which involves regular
visits to the country and dialogue with its authorities — was opened
in 1996.
The PACE Monitoring Committee currently has 11 countries under
monitoring procedure: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Russian Federation,
Serbia and Ukraine.
During the upcoming debate, the assembly is likely to appoint
Brande, who is a member of the Monitoring Committee, as rapporteur
for Turkey. Brande acknowledged that he was likely to be assigned to
the post and added that this would be clear as of June 23.
"There are criteria set for closure of political parties by the
Council of Europe’s Venice Commission. We see that these criteria are
not met in the case against the AK Party," Brande told Today’s Zaman,
referring to the fact that according to the principles of the Venice
Commission, of which Turkey is a member, a political party can only
be banned if it advocates the use of violence or seeks to use violence
to overthrow the constitutional order.
"An EU candidate needs to obey rules set by the Council of Europe for
protection of democracy and human rights. Speaking frankly, it is not
possible for a country under the Council of Europe’s monitoring to
also be a member of the EU. There is, of course, a mutual interaction
between the EU and the Council of Europe," Brande said when asked
whether a possible monitoring decision by Strasbourg would have any
impacts on Turkey’s EU bid.
Turkey was given EU candidate country status at the Helsinki summit
in December 1999, when it was also noted that it would be required
to meet the same conditions for accession as other countries.
Turkey started an expansive reform process after the summit in order
to meet the EU criteria and has been engaged in this process ever
since. The then-coalition government under the late Prime Minister
Bulent Ecevit abolished the death penalty in 2002 as a historic step
toward the EU.
The Copenhagen summit in December 2002 also moved Turkey closer to
the EU. The EU Council finally decided that negotiations would start
without delay if Turkey met the Copenhagen political criteria by the
December 2004 summit, only a few months after PACE had decided to
end the monitoring of Turkey.
Turkey began EU membership talks in 2005, but they have been held
back by the continued division of Cyprus, slow progress in EU-mandated
reforms and frosty attitudes in some EU countries, such as France. The
EU froze eight chapters in 2006 in response to Turkey’s refusal to
grant trade privileges to Cyprus, which Ankara does not recognize,
under a customs union pact with the bloc.
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PACE rapporteur plans to visit Turkey in autumn Only a day before an
urgent planned debate on Turkey, the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe (PACE) will discuss a report concerning "the state
of democracy in Europe" on June 25 during the during the assembly’s
upcoming plenary session later this month. "Constitutional reform is
still required in Turkey, with a view to ensuring full compliance
with the European Convention on Human Rights," the report notes as
a major shortcoming concerning Turkey with respect to the separation
of powers and the role of Parliament.
Serhiy Holovaty of Ukraine, the rapporteur, also said that he planned
to visit Turkey in autumn this year in his capacity as chair of the
Committee on the Honoring of Obligations and Commitments by Member
States of the Council of Europe (Monitoring Committee).
Holovaty said he would report back to the committee on progress made
by Turkish authorities on the 12 issues mentioned in 2004 when PACE
had decided to end the monitoring of Turkey, declaring that the
country had "achieved more reform in a little over two years than
in the previous decade" and had clearly demonstrated its commitment
and ability to fulfill its statutory obligations as a member state
of the Council of Europe. Then, the assembly resolved to continue
"post-monitoring dialogue" with the authorities on a 12-point list
of outstanding issues. Ankara Today’s Zaman
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