What is Living and What is Dead in the Turkish Parliament?

On January 30th, 2024, the Turkish Parliament officially revoked the mandate of Can Atalay, an opposition MP representing the earthquake-affected city of Hatay. Atalay, incarcerated for his alleged role in the nationwide Gezi Park protests, lost his MP status as soon as Deputy Speaker Bekir Bozdağ read the court judgment confirming his 18-year prison sentence—a ruling that the nation’s highest court deemed unconstitutional twice. Predictably, the session was emotionally charged, with opposition MPs protesting, some displaying signs reading “Freedom to Can Atalay,” and one even throwing a copy of the Turkish Constitution at Bozdağ. “We are witnessing the execution of a coup trembling on the Constitution,” remarked Erkan Baş, the leader of Atalay’s Workers Party of Turkey (TİP).

Atalay’s imprisonment, even prior to the Parliament’s intervention, had been at the center of a high-level judicial crisis, covered extensively on this blog (here, here and in a previous post by me). The Constitutional Court (TCC) ruled in October and December that Atalay’s imprisonment, despite his parliamentary immunity, violated his constitutional right to be elected and engage in political activities. Twice, the 3rd Chamber of the Court of Cassation, the apex court in criminal and civil matters, refused compliance, accused the TCC of “judicial activism,” and called for a criminal probe into TCC justices writing for the majority.

The termination of Atalay’s mandate, marred by procedural irregularities and substantive defects, is now a fact. In a way, here lies the power of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarian regime—in its ability to transform fatally flawed decisions into incontestable facts, absolute victories. Then, after each defeat, we optimistically describe the incident as a crisis, a coup against the constitutional order, as if there were a constitutional normality that exists but is only momentarily disabled. As argued in my previous post, this language makes it all the more challenging to grasp how this polity, with all its injustice and suffering, has been made and sustained.

Atalay’s incident, from its inception to the recent parliamentary drama, not only exposes the diminished authority of the TCC but also exemplifies the tacit cooperation among the regime’s loyal officers—judges, MPs, or civil servants. In this subtle network, the Parliament occupies a peculiar place with its distinct symbolism, serving as a fig leaf for authoritarian politics. This is what happened in the latest fait accompli: with the Parliament’s forced participation, an egregious court ruling, lacking any reasonable constitutional basis, has been laundered, and a blatant violation of law turned into a fact that we will have to live with.

Parliament’s Intervention: An Act with a Thousand Defects

Let me begin from where my previous post ended—the Third Chamber’s audacious ruling on November 8th, resisting Atalay’s release, deeming the TCC ruling ultra vires, and calling for a criminal investigation against the majority justices. In response, Atalay’s legal team submitted another individual application to the TCC, citing the ongoing violation of rights identified in the prior, non-implemented judgment.

On December 21st, the Court issued its second opinion, reiterating its earlier reasoning but with unanimity and more emphatic language. It characterized the 3rd Chamber’s ruling as “having no place in the Turkish legal system” and added a consequentialist section on why non-compliance with the Court’s rulings would be fatal for the rule of law in Turkey (para. 55-67). The Court sent the file to the criminal court of first instance for Atalay’s release, explaining at length the receiving court’s obligation to remedy the violation as instructed, with no room for transfer or dismissal. Moreover, a copy of the judgment was forwarded to the Parliament and the Council of Judges and Prosecutors, likely aiming to trigger disciplinary action and political pressures against the rogue judges of the Third Chamber.

With utter disregard, the same actors committed identical transgressions. The trial court in Istanbul, despite the TCC’s explicit instructions, transmitted the case file back to the Court of Cassation. Once again, the 3rd Chamber erroneously assumed jurisdiction and refused to give effect to the TCC’s order to release Atalay. The presiding judge, Muhsin Şentürk, forwarded a copy of the ruling to Parliament, initiating the termination procedure under Article 84/2 of the Constitution. Following weeks of silence and backroom dealings in Ankara, the plan to enforce Atalay’s twice-vacated conviction was first revealed by Leyla Şahin Usta, deputy chair of the Justice and Development Party group, during a live broadcast. The same afternoon, the advisory council swiftly convened, reorganized the agenda, and Deputy Speaker Bozdağ read Atalay’s prison sentence amidst outrage and shock.

This entire process was legally flawed on various levels. Under Article 84/2 of the Constitution, an MP can only lose their status if the criminal conviction, notified to the Assembly, has finality. However, the ruling from the 3rd Chamber lacked not only finality but also validity—it was void in two distinct respects. Substantively, it was unconstitutional for infringing several of Atalay’s fundamental rights, authoritatively determined in a binding judgment. It was also void procedurally, as the 3rd Chamber was improperly seized, going against the TCC’s decision to exclusively empower the trial court for remedying the violation.

Once again, Atalay’s lawyers and the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), resorted to the TCC for a legal remedy. They sought an expedited declaratory judgment that would establish the purported removal as “null and void” under the Court’s established doctrine, which invalidates parliamentary acts for serious procedural errors equivalent to amending Parliament’s Rules of Procedure. Despite voicing a legitimate outrage, the application was inherently futile since, technically, there was no parliamentary act to be reviewed and invalidated—the reading of Atalay’s conviction was merely declaratory under Article 84/2.

Possibly driven by similar reasoning, the TCC held that there was no ground to entertain the case with a majority of votes—10 to 4. As of this writing, its reasoned decision remains unpublished. However, even this act of relative self-restraint failed to appease the members of the regime; the Minister of Justice criticized the Court for not summarily dismissing the application for lack of jurisdiction.

In any case, given the Government’s steadfast commitment to obstructing Atalay’s release, we should have more reasonable expectations about what is judicially feasible. The TCC is at a highly fragile juncture, and it is not evident why a ruling that unequivocally deems Atalay’s termination “null and void” would be more effective than all the previous rulings, which were shamelessly disregarded and resisted. Consequently, the opposition should cease regarding the Court as an omnipotent entity with the power to rectify all that is outrageous and shocking in Turkish politics. What is at issue is an irreducibly political confrontation where legalistic moves and eloquently articulated doctrines are impotent.

Seeing Erdoğan’s Long Game

The real mystery, then, is what lies behind the government’s persistent and obsessive pursuit. Why does Atalay’s case hold so much significance for Erdoğan’s regime that a blatant judicial crisis is tolerated, and its political costs are readily absorbed? Some analysts explain it by the regime’s special resentment against all those involved in the Gezi Events—a historical challenge to Erdoğan’s rule that endures in public memory after more than a decade. Alternatively, and perhaps less romantically, others interpret the controversy as a pretext for restructuring the TCC through another referendum following the upcoming local elections. Substantiating this latter interpretation, President Erdoğan recently emphasized constitutional amendments as the sole means of resolving the judicial crisis. Concurrent news reports affirm the regime’s discontent and unease regarding the court’s influence through the use of “individual applications.”

Regardless of the precise motive, such adversarial confrontations are not unprecedented in the Turkish context. This is not the first occasion where the TCC is being criticized for its mildly liberal jurisprudence or accused of lacking patriotism. Moreover, institutional adversaries, whether real or perceived, have always been active ingredients of Erdoğan’s political style, characterized by a blend of cold-blooded realism and carefully engineered collective hysteria. Through this adversarial lens, he not only solidifies his party’s voter base but also shifts dissatisfaction away from the government’s policy missteps towards external adversaries: the interest rate lobby, foreign powers, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), bureaucratic oligarchy, and now the TCC.

Furthermore, such headline-grabbing inter-branch conflicts test the loyalties of the ruling elite, reshuffling the regime’s inner hierarchy with new losers and winners. Take for instance Numan Kurtulmuş, the Speaker of Parliament, whose reluctance for enforcing the rogue judgement ended up in his recent sidelining. As a result, the whole removal procedure took place in his conspicuous absence, while Deputy Speaker Bozdağ was the one leading the initiative and taking all the credit. Reports also indicate ongoing internal divisions within the regime regarding the future trajectory and status of the TCC. In essence, the prolonged controversy gives Erdoğan, having already positioned himself as a neutral referee, the opportunity to distinguish the unquestioning loyalists from the hesitant, foot-dragging ones.

The Parliament: A Lifeless Monument for Cynical Homage

Within this multilayered struggle, Parliament assumes a purely rhetorical yet still central function. Therefore, it is crucial to pause and foreground what this informal function actually entails. Under Turkey’s current presidential system, the legislative branch first appears wholly obsolete, devoid of any genuine agency or political significance, especially when the same party or bloc controls the presidency and the legislature.¹⁾ Despite its constitutionally-imposed irrelevance, however, the Turkish Parliament continues to hold symbolic value, which is opportunistically invoked by the regime and utilized for momentary gains. For instance, on the day following Atalay’s removal, Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the minor partner of the alliance, applauded the Parliament’s courage, making the following remarks:

“The Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM), as the manifestation of national will, rejected the domineering, ill-intentioned, prejudiced, politically biased, flawed, and painful stance advanced by the Constitutional Court, backed by media power.”

Bahçeli’s characterization is revealing, particularly for his rhetorical weaponization of the Parliament as national will incarnate—as though Atalay was not an elected MP and as though his removal was the outcome of genuine democratic deliberation. However, in the regime’s thinking, all this is incidental because Parliament only exists as a memorial site, a dead monument for a cynical show of respect. Nothing more.

This abusive language, laden with hypocrisy and doublespeak, will likely persist in the coming months as the government brings forth its constitutional amendment package before various parliamentary bodies. “Turkey is drafting a new civilian constitution, ending juristocracy, and the Grand National Assembly is its engine,” it will be asserted. We should see it for what it is: a deception, mere lip service, an act of anti-democratic myth-making. Then, as we look clear-headedly to the future, our focus should be to craft a winning majority rather than engaging in new legalistic maneuvers, designed to persuade or sanction the 3rd Chamber judges or the regime’s loyal operators outside the judiciary. Because neither the slowly turning wheels of justice nor our well-crafted arguments will reach them. As Upton Sinclair observed a century ago, “it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”