The myth of ‘independent judiciary’: the evolution of judiciary-executive relations in Turkish politics

ABSTRACT

The position of judiciary in politics is an important area of discussion for both legal and political experts. The issue has particularly been on Turkish political agenda for the past decade with the emergence of a strong single-party government under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi-JDP) rule. This article aims to analyse the evolution of relations between the judiciary and executive in Turkey from a historical perspective by examining the Republican era until the JDP rule. The struggle over the control of institutions becomes more visible during periods of strong government and the analysis shows that the idea of an independent, apolitical judiciary is a myth that was created by the institutional and legal design of the Republic in the Turkish case and is not peculiar to the JDP government.

KEYWORDS:

• Turkish politics
• executive-judiciary relations
• judicial independence
• power relations
• judicial activism
• judicial politics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Ayşe Aslıhan Çelenk has received her Ph.D. from Bilkent University, Department of Political Science in 2008. She is currently the Department Chair and Associate Professor in Erciyes University, Department of International Relations. Her research focuses on European Union, Europeanization, Turkey–EU relations and Turkish politics. She has published several articles on Europeanization of Centre-Local Relations in Turkey, Europeanization of Regional Policies, civil–military relations, political Islam and party politics in Turkey.