Turkish court rules governing party is legal

by Dave Keating | July 31, 2008 at 03:12 am

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Turkey's high court has decided not to decalre the country's ruling party illegal for being based on Islam, sending waves of relief throughout the AKP party and in Brussels within the EU. The modern state of Turkey was set up as a fiercely secular government, although it is a majority Muslim country. Political parties based on religion are illegal, so the question before the court was whether the Justice and Development Party (AKP) is a purely religious party. Though the party has its roots as an Islamist group, it has since become more moderate.

The ruling will surely not settle the tensions between the country's secular ewstablishment (particularly in the army) and the increasingly aggressive and vocal voice os political Islam in Turkey.

Members of Turkey's ruling party have expressed relief after the country's top court narrowly rejected calls for the party and its leaders, including Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, to be banned from politics.

Following days of deliberation in the four-and-a-half-month case, the constitutional court's 11 judges voted by just six to five against an indictment accusing Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) of pursuing an Islamist agenda and seeking to undermine Turkey's staunchly secular constitution. The court did impose a financial penalty stripping the party of half its public funding next year.
A verdict against AKP, which had already seen its efforts to lift a ban on the wearing of headscarves in universities overturned by the court this year, had been widely expected in the weeks leading up to the judges' deliberation amid simmering tensions between government supporters and members of Turkey's secular political elite.