Dissolution of Political Parties by the Constitutional Court in Turkey

Abstract

In this article the author examines the constitutional court cases that led to the dissolution of two political parties in Turkey: Halkin Emek Partisi (People's Labor Party) a leftist, pro-Kurdish party and Refah (Well-Being/Welfare Party) a center-right Islamist party. These two decisions set constitutional milestones that not only affected later similar cases, but more generally also shaped the constitutional trajectory of Turkey. The author examines these cases along three main axes: procedural foundations, substantive constructions of `threats', and the international context. She offers an analytic approach that treats the constitution not merely as text but as a hub of multiple themes, multiple venues for action, deployed by multiple actors for multiple ends. She shows how various venues of action and interpretation respond to a larger framework consisting of an unstable thematic assortment of Kemalist ideology, international treaties and the legacy of the 1980 military intervention. By following the ways in which the court responded to such venues of interpretation, the author establishes the crucial coordinates of the intricate relation between the domains of law and politics as it has been played out on the constitutional level.