Turkey's Dred Scott Case
Things other journalists living here, Turkish and Western, have said to me in the past few days:
Turkish journalist: "Don't worry, Claire. It's bad. It's really bad. But we've done this before and been okay." ... "I mean, it's bad, yeah." ... Pause. "Do you think it's that bad? Do you think it will be okay?"
Western journalist: "Are you as depressed as I am? Is this as bad as it looks?"
The headline in Hürriyet Daily News reads: Brinkmanship pushes Ankara to edge of the abyss:
Tuesday’s opening of the new government opens the way for a new game of brinkmanship in the country, threatening to push it into deep political chaos at the very beginning of a new legislative term and seemingly dashing hopes of consensus on a new constitution. What makes the situation worse is the failure of the political parties and the judiciary to find a way out of the ongoing crisis stemming from legislative mistakes and legal interpretations that are keeping eight elected deputies behind bars.
This crisis has been inevitable for a long time. Just as there were many complex reasons for the American civil war, there are many complex reasons why Turkey now finds itself in this position. But if this cannot somehow be contained or finessed, history will not look kindly upon Turkey's judiciary.
Perhaps it won't explode. Turkey goes to the brink and back much in the way that hypochondriacs put themselves in the hospital with hysterical complaints. The whole Turkish body politic almost seems to take some kind of perverse pleasure in playing twisted games with itself. After a while the doctors get weary; they roll their eyes; no, Madame Sosostris, you're not really having a heart attack--but then again, at her age, you just can't ever be sure.
The rulings to keep the imprisoned deputies out of Parliament remind me of the Dred Scott case. It's not a good thing to be reminded of that. If you study the legal reasoning in Dred Scott v. Sanford closely, you can find something that looks, if you hold it at an angle and squint at it a bit, like a plausible interpretation of the letter of the law. Article III, Section 2, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution does provide that "the judicial Power shall extend... to Controversies ... between Citizens of different States ..." There was a legal justification for saying that neither slaves nor their descendants were citizens, nor were they embraced in any of the other provisions of the Constitution that protected non-citizens. If you start with certain axioms, you can derive those conclusions. Then again, the axioms were wicked.
The law in Turkey says the courts have the right to hold criminal suspects and convicted criminals in custody. Of course it does. But the law also says you can hold criminal suspects in custody--in the case of the two Ergenekon suspects they declined to free--for ten years without conviction. Ten years! And the law says you can put someone away as a terrorist propagandist--in the case of the Kurdish deputy they've barred--for expressing the very same views that had him handily elected to parliament. And it apparently does not insist that such a judgment be made in a manner sufficiently timely that the verdict is issued before an election, not afterward.
Sure, you can fall back on saying, "The courts were just doing what the law says." Except that as in the case of Dred Scott, the fundamental immorality upon which the law rests, and the widespread sense among a large part of the population that the law is illegitimate and wrong--and the widespread suspicion that these are political decisions, not legal ones--means that nothing is going to be settled peaceably by saying, "Well, that's the law." The great rift of American history was hardly settled by saying, "No one of African descent can be a citizen. The Constitution says so." And this won't be settled by saying, "These guys are terrorists and coup-plotters. The Constitution says so."
At least half of Turkey, probably more, is unprepared to accept that the law says it's fine to hold these guys for as long as ten years without a verdict, or that Dicle should properly be kept out of politics as a terrorist propagandist--particularly since no one saw fit to say this before he was elected. These judgments, like the Dred Scott verdict, did not settle a hugely divisive problem or right a historic injustice or protect the nation from terrorism. They just pushed it a step closer to the abyss.
There's one place and only one place that has the legitimacy now to solve these problems: parliament. I wish it were not so--a trusted, independent judiciary is an essential component of an "advanced democracy"--but Turkey just doesn't have one at this point.
Turkey's not exactly calling me to ask my opinion, but should it wish to consider the view of someone whose own country has had a relevantly similar experience, here it is: Everyone elected must take his seat. And the first order of business must be fixing Turkey's broken judiciary. This does not mean capturing it in the hands of one faction or further politicizing it. It means writing a wise constitution, writing wise laws, and building a genuinely independent judiciary to enforce them, equally, for everyone.
But after what I saw last week at Silivri prison, I'm just not sure the will is there.
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Comments :
Oct '10
Re: Turkey's Dred Scott Case
sounds familiar to one case here in the philippines.
Jan '11
Re: Turkey's Dred Scott Case
Sometimes it's just easier to go on believing in vast conspiracy theories.
Oct '10
Re: Turkey's Dred Scott Case
A crisis is an opportunity for change (just ask Rahm Emmanuel).
The Dred Scott decision was a moment of clarity, where sharp contrast was drawn and sides were chosen. Like Obama's overreach spawned the Tea Party, Chief Justice Taney's overreach had the opposite of its desired effect. From wikipedia:
"Although Taney believed that the decision represented a compromise that would settle the slavery question once and for all by transforming a contested political issue into a matter of settled law, it produced the opposite result. It strengthened Northern slavery opposition, divided the Democratic Party on sectional lines, encouraged secessionist elements among Southern supporters of slavery to make bolder demands, and strengthened the Republican Party."
Re: Turkey's Dred Scott Case
One problem. Nothing barred Americans of African descent from being citizens in a number of the states, and freedmen and their descendants had the vote in those states. Taney also claimed that no one had any notion at the time that the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence included human beings of African descent. He was lying, and he knew it.
Dec '10
Re: Turkey's Dred Scott Case
Is settled law anything like settled science?
Edited on Jun 28, 2011 at 9:19amApr '11
Re: Turkey's Dred Scott Case
OT, Ms. Berlinski, but your friend Loukanikos is back, the star of his own video and with a new name.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_G_qYO8ELA