Duty of citizenship

Let alone the rule of law based on human rights, the Supreme Election Board decision has ended the rule of law in our country. If the express provision of a statute can be breached for nonsensical reasons in a country, that means those who hold power in that country can do as they please. Nothing other than an arbitrary and, so, oppressive government can emerge from this. Being a law-based state does not put a state at an advanced level. The rule of law can even apply in dictatorships. The laws may be terrible, but they are complied with. We are faced with an even greater regression thanks to the Supreme Election Board decision. I mean, at issue is something even more grave than whether there is to be a dictatorship or not in Turkey. A state that does not obey its own rules is like a building that has lost its foundation. Justice is the foundation of the state. Forget about justice, we see even express statutory provisions being removed from the foundation.

The provision that decrees unstamped voting slips to be invalid is not a rule to be dismissed as some detail or a technical legal matter. Requirements of form are an indispensable part of the rule of law. To be able to speak of the existence of the law in a country, the basic principle that ‘form is the sworn enemy of the arbitrary and the twin sister of liberty’ must be observed constantly in every decision.

What we are debating following this ‘stampless poll’ goes well beyond the implementation of a statutory article. We are talking about legal certainty. I do not know if those who took the decision, who are defending it or are inclined to drag the business out realise it, but this is an issue of the state’s preservation.

This constitutional amendment, said to have been introduced to strengthen the so-called state in this tempestuous period the world has entered, has come upon us in a manner that has annihilated the legal order on which the state is erected.

How can the voter henceforth expect to vote with confidence in the Supreme Election Council and thus in electoral security?

How can a state institution henceforth be prevented from directly breaching express statutory provisions, let alone from failing to implement them?

In a country in which there remains no legal certainty, even the basic requirement for a state to be a state, that is safeguarding life and property, remains at the whim of rulers.

With citizens having been deprived of safeguards in this way, the roof over them provided by the state is on the verge of collapse. We observe in the Middle East how countries that lack sound institutions and the rule of law are crumbling.

The attempt is being made to turn Turkey into a country that does not uphold its own stamp or does not even recognise its own stamp. In fact, were you to inquire of those who do this, they would purport to be the greatest champions of the state. The international community, too, has nothing but contempt for a country that holds its own law in contempt. And a country that has lost its standing and been relegated to the lower league becomes prone to all kinds of domineering, pressure and attack. Particularly if there exist opportunities to accomplish this through resort to one single person.

It is a duty of citizenship, through all democratic means, to oppose this ‘stampless’ decision and protect the stamp of the state so as to preserve the state.