ISTANBUL,
Turkey —
Turkey’s top court on Tuesday ruled that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had the
right to pull his country out of a European convention against gender-based
violence.
اضافة اعلان
Rights groups and Western governments voiced
shock and outrage when Erdogan canceled Turkey’s membership of the
Istanbul Convention in an overnight decree last year.
Erdogan’s political opponents argued the
president did not have the power to unilaterally annul membership of an
international agreement.
Turkey became the first country to sign the
convention in 2011 and ratified it by vote in parliament the following year.
But the top administrative court on Tuesday
rejected a request to overturn Erdogan’s decision in a case involving testimony
from leading women’s rights groups and legal scholars.
The court’s five judges ruled in a 3–2 vote
that a president’s decision could not be subject to a legal review.
The two dissenting judges said in a separate
opinion that
Erdogan’s actions overstepped his legal bounds.
A lawyer representing the We Will Stop Femicide
Platform rights organization said the ruling was “tantamount to rejecting the
constitution”.
“It is terrifying from a legal perspective,”
lawyer Ipek Bozkurt told AFP. “This erroneous decision should have been stopped
by the court.”
The treaty — now enacted by dozens of European
countries — requires member states to adopt domestic legislation that strictly
punishes domestic abuse and gender-based violence.
But Erdogan’s Islamic conservative supporters
argued that its language harmed traditional family values and promoted LGBTQ
rights.
Erdogan’s main opponents in next year’s
general election immediately rose to the treaty’s defense.
Main opposition leader
Kemal Kilicdaroglu vowed to sign Turkey back up to the convention should he become president in
the July 2023 vote.
“I can make a promise to the nation,” the CHP
party leader said.
“When we come to power — and we will, with
God’s permission and the nation’s approval — in the first week, even in the
first 24 hours, we will implement the Istanbul Convention,” Kilicdaroglu told
reporters.
Nationalist Iyi (Good) Party leader Meral Aksener accused
the court of issuing “a political decision (aimed) at pleasing a dirty mind”.
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