Turkey, May 06: Turkey’s parliament approved major judicial reforms on Thursday moving the country towards a referendum on a constitution militant secularists say would serve to cement the Islamist-rooted AK Party’s grip on power.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who denies Islamist ambitions, won support for a restructuring of the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK). He is expected to win an overall vote on the constitutional draft on Thursday evening or Friday.
Erdogan said work had started on a referendum he has pledged to call if, as expected, he does not garner the required 367 votes to be approved outright.
“We have started our campaign, our preparations. We will go to the people,” he told reporters after meeting AK Party deputies in parliament.
Erdogan, in power since 2002 with a large majority and facing elections next year, says wideranging reforms of the judiciary and the role of the influential military are essential to meet the demands of the European Union Turkey seeks to join.
Turkey’s lira currency weakened one percent and bond yields hit a high for the year on Thursday due to global market weakness, and prospects of a legal wrangle over the reforms were also seen as unsettling for investors.
The reform of the HSYK, responsible for managing the judiciary, secured 334 votes overnight and exceeded the 330 threshold required for individual articles.
Deputy HSYK Chairman Kadir Ozbek said he would fight the overhaul.
“We are obliged to fulfil our duty of defence. We will continue our struggle until the end,” broadcasters quoted him as telling reporters.
Lacking the two-thirds majority needed to pass the bill into law through parliament, but possessing enough seats to put the proposals to a referendum, Erdogan is banking on public support for changes to a charter that was written during a period of military rule that followed a coup in 1980.
Critics accuse the AK Party of using reforms to undermine the independence of the judiciary, a bastion of Turkey’s secular establishment, and install supporters in top judicial posts, as part of a long-term strategy to roll back secularism in Turkey.
The main opposition party has said it will appeal to the Constitutional Court to annul the amendments.
The country’s chief prosecutor, who previously tried to close down the AK Party, has said the reforms are undemocratic.
There has been speculation that he could launch a fresh attempt to ban the party, which embraces centre-right and nationalist elements as well as a core of religious conservatives.
On Monday, an article that would have made political party bans harder, failed to get enough votes in parliament to be included in any package put to a referendum.
The failure of this key piece of legislation resulted from rare dissent among AK Party deputies.
But Erdogan appears to have restored party discipline in the subsequent votes, and another key plank of the reforms, overhauling the Constitutional Court, won the backing of the assembly on Tuesday.
—Agencies