A So-Called Advanced Democracy

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu is one of the more open-minded politicians. He is a graduate of Ankara University's faculty of political science who also holds a Ph.D. from Bilkent University. He is also an expert on European Union affairs. Çavuşoğlu is open to dialogue with others, as evidenced by his election as head of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). I know him as a person who believes that Turkey should take the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the EU as a reference in the fields of democracy and human rights.

He was appointed as minister of EU affairs when Egemen Bağış had to step down in the aftermath of the Dec. 17 corruption and bribery investigation. Çavuşoğlu declared 2014 the year of the EU, saying: “2014 will be the year of the EU but this is not enough. We would like to become a member of the EU; this is a vital process for us. We have been dreaming of this for six decades.” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan frequently reiterates this goal and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has even specified a date for Turkey's admission as a full EU member: 2023.

Who would object to these goals that would contribute to the improvement of the standards in different fields including health and judiciary, and to the steps taken towards this end? The Justice and Development (AKP) government has introduced a lot of reforms towards this process in the first two terms. The EU process has served as a roadmap in both domestic and foreign policy. More importantly, this worked well to address the questions raised over the party's Islamist roots and past.

Therefore, there is no problem in declaring 2014 as the year of the EU and referring to 2023 as the date for Turkey's admission as a full member. The problem is talking about the EU membership goal and at the same time, drafting laws that are contrary to this goal. It is ironic that 2014, declared as the year of the EU, is actually when Turkey undermined EU values and standards and moved away from the democratic standards of the Copenhagen Criteria through its enacted laws. It should also be noted that we have moved away from democracy despite the fact that 2014 was declared year of the EU; who knows what would have happened if it had not been declared so? The main indicator that declaring 2014 as an EU year and the statements referring to the EU membership process are so meaningless and obsolete is the most recent EU progress report on Turkey, which measured Turkey's performance. Those who have been closely following the process note that this is the worst report since 1998.

The most important development that moved Turkey away from EU values and will turn our country into one of the regimes similar to those in the Middle East is on judicial independence. The German president had to resign because of a suspected incident of bribery (the amount of the suspected bribe was 700 euros) while the corruption investigations in Turkey allegedly involving some ministers claim that they received millions of dollars in bribes; this is not reconcilable with EU goals.

Likewise, drafting laws to subordinate the judiciary to the justice minister and interfering with the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) elections is not something suitable in the EU membership process. Is it possible to argue that placing a journalist under arrest by relying on subjective justification, threatening media bosses, forcing them to fire journalists, banning social media tools including YouTube and Twitter, creating special courts, placing the Internet history of users under surveillance without requiring a court order, trying to destroy innocent foundations and associations, obstructing the right to a defense and a fair trial and adopting laws to confiscate the properties of private and legal persons are compatible with EU membership goals?

If the steps taken had been the EU membership goals, would former ECtHR judge Rıza Türkmen have made this statement: “As noted by British thinker [John Locke], ‘Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.' This statement made in the 17th century is a good definition of what Turkey now looks like.” If the policies had been in conformity with EU membership goals, would Turkish lawyers in an American university have argued that Turkey is returning to the coup period? Professor Seval Yıldırım, vice dean at the Whittier Law School, speaking on the recent package of judicial reform, said: “Turkey will become a police state. Legally, the state will be able to interfere with the private lives of people and to bring those who are referred to as undesirable to the courts.”

If you declare 2014 as year of the EU on the one hand and do all these on the other, this means you consider the people in the world stupid. It does nothing at the domestic level other than deepening polarization. It is impossible to believe that Davutoğlu, Ali Babacan, Çavuşoğlu and new EU Minister Volkan Bozkır are unable to see this. They should either avoid bold statements like advanced democracy or properly name the process, which is actually the construction of an authoritarian regime. Like Maulana Rumi said, “Either seem as you are, or be as you seem.”

ABDÜLHAMİT BİLİCİ (Cihan/Today's Zaman)