Author: Asli U. Bali

VJIL Symposium: Bâli Answers to Shambayati and Ginsburg

[Aslı Ü. Bâli is Acting Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law.] This post is part of the Virginia Journal of International Law Symposium, Volume 52, Issues 1 and 2. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. Many thanks to Tom Ginsburg and Hootan Shambayati for their thoughtful responses to my Article - "The Perils of Judicial Independence: Constitutional Transition and the Turkish Example." I am in agreement with many of their core points. In his comments, Professor Ginsburg argues that the role of the Turkish judiciary as guardians against democratic reversal of founding ideological commitments “made it inevitable that the courts would either have to soften their stance or suffer corrective political action.” I agree but would like to distinguish my argument about the requirements of judicial accountability in transitional contexts from the more general debate concerning the balance between independence and accountability for courts in democratic systems. In particular, I am not arguing that the elected branches of government should hold the judiciary directly accountable. Nor do I oppose insulating judicial self-governance from partisan politics. Rather, I argue, self-governance mechanisms that are representative of the judiciary as a whole – not exclusively judges from the highest courts – are an understudied but important feature of institutional design in post-authoritarian transitions. More specifically, I argue that the concept of judicial “independence” should include independence from elite capture when transitioning from the rule of the few to the rule of the many. When mechanisms of judicial self-governance – such as judicial councils that govern appointments, promotions and discipline of judges – are dominated by apex courts, they may entrench a self-perpetuating judicial oligarchy that opposes democratic transition. As an example, I trace how the Turkish judicial council was subject to elite capture, maintaining a hierarchical appointments and promotions system that blocked changes to the composition of the judiciary that might reflect the political, social and economic diversity of the underlying society. The result was consistent judicial opposition to reform initiatives introduced by the AKP government. Professor Ginsburg refers to recent cases in which the courts have cracked down on government critics as reflecting a worrying trend. I share his concern about the wave of arrests over the last two years that have been directed against journalists, academics, publishers and graduate students for their political opinions, whether in opposition to the governing AKP party’s policies or in support of Kurdish rights. However, the capacity of the government to use the courts in this way reflects continuities between the AKP and prior Turkish governments rather than an embrace of the Iranian example. The use of counterterrorism powers to suppress freedom of speech and association are sadly a long-standing feature of the Turkish state tradition. The spectacle of a former Turkish Chief of the Army General Staff – Ilker Basbug – being prosecuted for terrorism-related charges is something new in Turkey. But the novelty derives neither from the charges nor the politicized use of the courts. Rather, what is new in the Basbug prosecution is that long-standing mechanisms of state repression once wielded to advance the interests of the Turkish military are now being used to prosecute former military officials.

VJIL Symposium: Introducing Aslı Ü. Bâli’s “The Perils of Judicial Independence”

[Aslı Ü. Bâli is Acting Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law.] This post is part of the Virginia Journal of International Law Symposium, Volume 52, Issues 1 and 2. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. I am grateful to Opinio Juris for the opportunity to discuss my Article - "The Perils of Judicial Independence: Constitutional Transition and the Turkish Example." Here I outline the critique I offer of the "Turkish model" of constitutionalism and the implications of my argument for democratizing transitions such as those currently underway in the Arab world. Democratizing model or cautionary tale? Turkey is sometimes invoked as a potential "model" for democratization in countries like Egypt and Tunisia. This article considers the features of the Turkish legal order that have impeded democratic consolidation. In particular, I analyze the role of the Turkish Constitutional Court and arguments about judicial independence in a series of constitutional crises from 2007 to the present. This focus on courts and constitutions is appropriate, I claim, because of the emphasis placed on "rule of law," constitutionalism and an independent judiciary in the academic literature on democratizing transitions. In the context of the Arab Spring, such prescriptions have served an almost talismanic function – separating, in the eyes of external observers, legitimate calls for democratic change from troubling forms of political upheaval. In Egypt such observers view arguments for managed transition through constitutional reform as appropriate while political transformation through the ballot box is identified with the specter of political Islam. Yet, in the Turkish case, I argue that a strong and independent judiciary and the effort to insulate certain constitutional principles from democratic debate – particularly centered around the meaning of secularism in a Muslim majority country – has served to inhibit democratization and entrench legacies of authoritarianism. Indeed, as a result of the positions taken by traditional political elites through the courts, political Islamists in Turkey have emerged as democratizers and perhaps even (accidental) liberalizers. Redefining judicial independence Based on the Turkish case I argue that institutional design prescriptions for democratic transitions, including those related to judicial independence, should be revisited. In particular, the meaning of "judicial independence" should be understood differently in the context of a transition from minority rule to majority rule (through democratization). At present, judicial independence is conceived primarily in terms of separation of powers; while accompanied by the idea of "checks and balances," the emphasis is on maintaining the autonomy of the courts rather than on subjecting them to political checks. Ran Hirschl has argued that this notion of judicial independence is particularly well suited to enabling authoritarian elites to manage transitional processes. The Turkish conceptions of constitutionalism and judicial independence exemplify the risk that constitutional provisions may serve to insulate elite privileges from democratic reversal through the courts. Through my analysis of recent Turkish constitutional crises – and their origins in institutional legacies from the founding of the republic – I argue that in cases of democratic transition, the best definition of judicial independence would be independence from elite capture rather than independence from the elected branches of government.