Baslar on 50 Years of Turkey's Constitutional Court

Kemal Baslar, Ataturk University, has posted 50 Years of the Constitutional Court of Turkey, which appeared in the Justice and Law Review 3 (2012):

The Constitutional Court of Turkey is the fifth constitutional court adopting the European (Austrian) model of constitutional review. The Constitutional Court commemorated the 50th anniversary of its establishment on 25 April 2012. Its history is fraught with political and legal debates concerning the composition, competence, organisation and jurisprudence of the Court. This article is devoted to accounting for the these developments save its case-law. To be precise, the case law of the Court will not be assessed here; rather, a bird’s-eye-view-account of the past of the Court will be under scrutiny.

This article addresses foreign readers who would like to learn how the Turkish Constitutional Court evolved over the last five decades. To do this, the author has divided the history of the Court under three headings. The first period covers the years between 1962-1982; the second period falls between 1983-2010. The third period commenced after the approval of the 2010 constitutional amendments and ends with the developments until the end of May 2012. It is hoped that a cursory look at the past will provide the non-Turkish speaking reader a better understanding as to how constitutional justice has developed in Turkey.