nam 22 uu 4500 10.59704/3c700fa1884f2ad3 DE-Verfassungsblog cr||||| 231115s2023||||xx#|||||o|||| ||| 0|eng|| 10.59704/3c700fa1884f2ad3 doi eng 342 23 Erhan, Doruk Author aut Downhill All The Way - Turkey and a New Chapter in its Routinized Constitutional Crises Erhan, Doruk Verfassungsblog 2023-11-15 Text txt rdacontent Computermedien c rdamedia Online-Ressource cr rdacarrier On November 8th, the 3rd Criminal Chamber of Turkey's Court of Cassation, the nation's apex court for civil and criminal matters, defied the Constitutional Court (the TCC) and explicitly accused it of engaging in “judicial activism.” The judicial feud between the two high courts stemmed from the individual application of Can Atalay, an opposition MP from the Workers Party of Turkey (TİP), challenging his ongoing imprisonment despite obtaining parliamentary immunity in the May 2023 elections. Indeed, the 3rd Chamber's wholly ungrounded defiance is a failure of the constitutional order, illustrating how the Constitution no longer serves its core function of authoritatively channeling, restraining, and organizing state power. However, the Atalay controversy is neither unprecedented nor a true turning point in Turkey's ailing democracy—it is just another symptom of a deepening dysfunction. CC BY-SA 4.0 Constitutional Crisis Turkish Constitutional Court Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH Verfassungsblog 2366-7044 https://verfassungsblog.de/downhill-all-the-way/ raw object