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Confession-like remarks from the Palace: Notable comments on investigations from Erdoğan's chief advisor Mehmet Uçum

Mehmet Uçum, chief advisor to AKP Chairman and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, stated that some recent investigations and prosecutions might be incomplete or problematic.

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In Turkey, in addition to the investigations launched in recent days against municipalities managed by the opposition, investigations have also begun to be opened one after another against individuals who criticize the government.

AKP Chairman and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's chief advisor, Mehmet Uçum, used notable expressions regarding the launched investigations in his 'Sunday Article', which he writes routinely every weekend.

In his article titled 'Legal Notes', Uçum made the assessment regarding the investigations initiated in recent days: "The rule of law in Turkey is a non-negotiable constitutional principle. Some legal practices, certain investigations and prosecutions may be incomplete or contain problems."


The full text of Uçum's article is as follows:

“In our day, when global and regional sovereignty wars are based solely on actual power, legal debates must also be realistic. The rote memorization regarding concepts such as universal law and the international human rights order has been broken, illusions have dissipated, and the cruelty of factual reality has been revealed. 

UNIVERSAL LAW

The Western meaning and content of the concept of universal law is unreliable for humanity. There cannot be a universal independent of the local, and this local cannot be just the West. It is not possible to accept a definition of universal law consisting solely of the West's experience and locality. If there is no local other than the West within that universal(!), then there is no universal either. 

True universal law can be a legal acquis consisting of the accumulation of all humanity. Without ignoring that issues such as the relationship between law and value, and legal value are quite controversial, we can assume the integrity of principles, values, and norms belonging to all humanity as universal law. But this new universal cannot be reduced to the West and Westernism. 

UNIVERSAL LAW-NATIONAL JUDICIARY

The limit for a national judiciary to take into account the acceptances of universal law is its own national positive legal order. Universal law can neither be taken as a direct reference nor applied directly. Generally accepted rules only bind the national judiciary when they are incorporated as norms into a country's domestic legal order. 

Furthermore, in cases where a national judiciary must apply its positive law with a legal understanding, it can be argued that it should align its legal perspective with the universal legal acquis belonging to all humanity. However, this situation does not eliminate the fact of national law; it makes visible the element of universal law that should already exist in the national legal systems of countries that have adopted democracy. 

The West, which is considered civilized (!) - primarily the USA, Germany, England, and France - never takes this perspective into account when it is contrary to its interests. There are many examples such as Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib prison tortures, NSU trials, human rights violations against the Yellow Vests, and systematic police practices that violate personal rights. Implicit/explicit police state practice, xenophobia, anti-Black racism, and Islamophobia have become normalized. The West's conscious blindness in Gaza has thrown the universal law deception into the trash. The United Nations system has gone bankrupt. The European Union is dying; they fell into an exemplary state during the pandemic and in Gaza. Of course, a bad example is not a precedent. But the tolerance of those who complain about law in Turkey toward the West, which is afflicted with legal violations, is still shameful.

The rule of law in Turkey is a non-negotiable constitutional principle. Some legal practices, certain investigations and prosecutions may be incomplete or contain problems. One of the goals of the legal reform perspective and judicial reform strategies is to eliminate these deficiencies and solve the problems. Reaching a Turkey without terrorism will also contribute to implementing legal reforms much more comprehensively and quickly. 

GLOBAL ORDER

The establishment of the UN after the Second World War and the increase in international conventions can theoretically be interpreted as states accepting to limit their sovereignty. 

However, the apparent purpose of the UN never matched the factual reality. This established system served no purpose other than being a tool in the global dominance wars of Western sovereigns and imperialist powers. Through this system, operations with legal covers were also carried out 'against countries whose sovereignty was intended to be limited'. 

Human rights were alienated from their essence, transformed into an ideology, and used to weaken and take over national states. 

As a result, the apparent global legal system has collapsed. There is no rule or institutional reference left at the global level; now there are open power wars. Humanity can emerge from this chaos by restructuring the world. How this will happen is the most important issue. 

What is certain is that national states can open a new path against this chaos by protecting their independence, making equal-level collaborations, and developing an anti-imperialist unity of national states. This is what Turkey is trying to do, and we have full faith that it will succeed.”