The
spectacle now of one prosecutor arresting another, emblazoned across the
Internet, illustrates dramatically where the EU-candidate's Muslim democracy is
facing its ultimate test.
AK and many liberals see the judiciary
and the courts as the redoubt of an ossified and autocratic secularist
establishment.
AK's critics, however, view a
government-backed Sept. 12 referendum on judicial reform as part of a creeping
Islamist 'coup'. Attempts by the army, which has toppled 4 governments, to cow
the reforming AK have failed and the civil service, police and universities
have come increasingly under its sway.
The "Deep State," as it is
widely known, looks to the hard-line secularists in the judiciary, which have
already failed in one attempt to declare AK a threat to secularism.
"You will now come with us. You are
under arrest," one of the two prosecutors says in the video leaked to
Turkish media.
"You can't do this, friends. Do you
know what you are doing?," the other one is heard saying. "I will
resist! You will have to take me by force! You're acting like bandits!"
The language reflects the high emotion
of politics, eight years after AK swept to power, profiting from disillusion
with corruption and incompetence in traditional secularist parties.
While there is consensus in Turkey that
changes are needed to a constitution written under military rule in the 1980s,
the reforms to overhaul the courts have exacerbated deep divisions.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan says they
bring the charter into line with Europe - an argument he also used in paring
back the influence of the generals over government.
A Muslim democracy with a growing
economic clout, Turkey occupies a key geostrategic position between Europe,
Central Asia and the Middle East so the outcome has broad implications.
"This is going to shape the type of
democracy we will have in Turkey," said Sinan Ulgen, from the
Istanbul-based Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies think tank.
"Much of Turkey's soft power and
influence in the region stems from the fact that it is a working Muslim
democracy." The referendum is also being watched as a barometer of support
for Erdogan ahead of elections set for 2011.
A "No" vote or a close outcome
might encourage the government to increase spending in a bid to boost support in
the election, endangering fiscal discipline and upsetting markets.
The reforms concern the make-up and
workings of the Constitutional Court, Turkey's highest court, and the High
Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HYSK), a state body charged with appointing
magistrates.
AK, the political force of a rising
middle class from the heartland that has challenged the secular centers of
power in Istanbul and Ankara, denies Islamist ambitions and points to a record
of economic and political reforms.
Experts agree the judiciary needs
changes to adapt the authoritarian state founded in 1923 to Europe's values.
"In Europe the judiciary is the
protector and guarantor of individual rights. In Turkey, it sees itself as the
guardian of the state and always sides with the state against individual
rights," said Ergun Ozbudun, a constitutional law expert.
But experts also say the proposed
changes could remove checks and balances on the powerful executive.
By giving Parliament, controlled by the
AK, and the president, a former AK official, more say in naming high judges and
prosecutors, the party would impose its view on anything from the use of
headscarves to military trials to tax evasion.
"The main problem in Turkey is that
there is not an embedded culture of independence of the judiciary," said
Riza Turmen, a former Turkish judge at the European Court of Human Rights.
Erdogan, aggressively campaigning for a
"yes" vote, says that if passed the reforms would end the tutelage of
"Deep State" forces in the high judiciary, army and bureaucracy
resisting liberal reforms in the nation of 72 million.
It was the arrest earlier this year of
Ilhan Cihaner, the prosecutor in eastern Erzincan province, that started the
row that resulted in the government launching the reform package.
Cihaner, who had investigated Islamist
brotherhoods in Erzincan, was charged with being a member of a deep state
group, a charge he said was political. The HYSK suspended the prosecutors who
ordered Cihaner's arrest and the government hit back with the referendum.
"Turkey is no longer a country that
upholds the rule of law. It is becoming a state run by a religious fascist
order," said Vural Savas, a former chief prosecutor known for his visceral
anti-Islamist views.
Polls are split, some predicting a
"yes" win others a "no." "I don't see any big
difference between those who vote 'yes' and those who vote 'no'," said
Haci Saygin, 32, a biology teacher in Istanbul. "It looks more and more
like a war between the elites of the country."