Current events, what Dr. Refik Saydam said 86 years ago, and the separation of powers

Dr. Refik Saydam was the first Minister of Health of our Republic and its 4th Prime Minister. As a military physician, he served with great success on various fronts during World War I, and later participated in the War of Independence right by Mustafa Kemal’s side. He was among the passengers on the Bandırma ferry that reached Samsun on May 19, 1919. With the founding of the Republic, he became our first Minister of Health and held this position successfully for 15 years, served briefly as Minister of the Interior, and became Prime Minister at the very beginning of 1939. In January 1939, as soon as he became Prime Minister, he made a statement that would be debated for years: "Everything we do is broken from A to Z." As far as I have heard, the newspaper Ulus, which was practically the official government organ of the time, did not publish this statement on the day it was made, but rather with a slight delay, and only because Mr. Saydam insisted on what he had said.

Over time, as you might imagine, Saydam’s words led to various interpretations. Those who were congenitally (a medical term meaning from birth) opposed to the Republic interpreted it as an admission of guilt likely uttered by mistake; some conspiracy theorists saw it as something known between the Eternal Chief and the National Chief, but which could only be said once the "conjuncture" (you know, that wretched conjuncture we struggle to pronounce!) had changed following the passing of the Eternal Chief; and finally, those who equated any criticism of the founding years of our Republic with treason tried to interpret it as the immature words of an inexperienced prime minister.

However, what did not occur to any of these three groups—and in my opinion, what we as a society still have not grasped even after 85 years—is the possibility that what Dr. Saydam said was a proper and honest self-criticism. I do not believe any other prime minister in our Republican history has made such an honest statement about what was happening in their country.

Let us come to the ongoing brokenness from A to Z. We were a society that had almost entirely missed the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. We have experienced many gains with the Republic. However, we still have a major deficiency in one very important area. That is the search for true justice and the acceptance that a proper judicial system, which would develop in parallel, is not a luxury we might attain as a result of our two-century-long passion for civilization, but an indispensable prerequisite for achieving that same passion. I am not trying to use flowery language, and let me state this immediately: The main reason for our current and deep economic bottleneck is not that foreign capital avoids investing in our country due to a lack of trust in our judiciary. The main reason is that, first and foremost, the people of my country have almost completely lost hope in their own country’s justice and judicial system, and as a result, have fallen into a state of inertia, losing their self-confidence and creativity. This is the main reason why my country’s most valuable young people are fleeing abroad.

I believe it was Churchill who said, "War is too serious a business to be left to soldiers." Lawyers, please forgive me, but as an elderly physician, I say: Civilization is essentially humanity’s effort to live humanely within the time allotted to it by making the unjust nature just. In this effort, humanity understands that the prerequisite for success is to preserve the instincts that bring happiness to oneself and others, while suppressing those that harm others, and thus creates a system of laws and judiciary. The third institution in this rebellion of humanity against the injustice of nature is the executive branch.

Yes, we have now arrived at Montesquieu’s (1689-1755) separation of powers. We have arrived, but I hope we have arrived by a different path than the one that is always forgotten. The most important leg of the tripod of the separation of powers is not the executive or the legislative, but the judiciary. Why? As I said earlier, civilization is humanity’s effort to make the justice-deprived nature just, and the legislative and executive branches are merely tools of this effort for justice.

When talking about the separation of powers, one cannot avoid talking about democracy. I wonder if it occurred to you. In the tripod I mentioned, the function of democracy is almost solely limited to electing the legislative and executive powers. As for the judges of the judicial power, just as the esteemed Professor Cahit Arf once said about universities that they are not established, they form, they are not elected, but are formed through various methods. The highest and most effective power in their proper formation is the demand for justice by the individuals in that society on the path to civilization.

In his latest 12punto article (April 16), the esteemed and dear lawyer Aydın Davran says, "I cannot help but wonder why the representatives of a view that rightly criticized the unlawful and unjust practices of the government between 1950-1960 in order to legitimize May 27 in the famous 1961 YÖN declaration, gave so little space to the concept of law in their manifestos." He is very right. Our Republic is in urgent need of a mobilization for justice, law, and the judiciary that has been neglected for many years and must begin with self-criticism.