Necip F. Bahadır
President of the Constitutional Court (Anayasa Mahkemesi Başkanı) Kadir Özkaya is, by all appearances, a man of faith. He has often chosen to convey his messages through references to sacred texts. At one point, he even recited Qur’anic verses and prophetic sayings directly to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, reminding him of accountability in the hereafter.
Did any of this help?
Did it influence Erdoğan’s governance or bring justice into the Constitutional Court’s rulings?
Sadly, no. I wish I could say otherwise. Özkaya did not open a new front in the defense of justice; he simply continued the same pattern as before.
A few days ago, the President of the Court spoke from the podium with a tight throat. His sentence broke off mid-way.
He was attempting to say:
“Let us live in such a way that when the time comes, may Almighty God not…”
He couldn’t finish. He lowered his head, producing faint, trembling sounds. He was clearly crying. He eventually completed the sentence:
“…not call us to His presence with the violation of someone’s rights upon us.”
Should a country feel fortunate to have a chief judge who chokes up with emotion?
Can we call him a fearless guardian of justice?
That image spread across Turkey and beyond. Some wondered, “Why tell us this?” Others held onto a sliver of hope. Could this be the sign of a coming transformation? Could we expect fairer decisions from the Constitutional Court going forward? Do tears ever lie? Does every person who cries truly cry for truth?
To me, it wasn’t Özkaya who was crying—it was justice itself.
Think of Lady Justice (Themis), standing blindfolded with her scales at the entrance of every courthouse. She is the one weeping. The AKP government has destroyed the balance of her scales.
If she does not cry, who will?
Chief Public Prosecutor Akın Gürlek, while evaluating the indictment against the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB), proudly spoke of working with the precision of a “jeweler’s scale.”
But what kind of comparison is that?
Is there anything more sensitive than the scales of justice?
They are not weighing gold—they are weighing rights, law, and justice.
And Gürlek knows very well that with the current state of those scales, justice cannot be delivered. Thus he resorted to the “jeweler’s scale” metaphor—as if justice itself were no longer reliable.
Gürlek has no genuine concern for justice. He may even have forgotten that “justice scales” exist at all. How can one expect justice from someone who cannot even grasp justice’s basic vocabulary?
Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chair Özgür Özel once aptly described Akın Gürlek as a “mobile guillotine,” criticizing how he is shuffled from court to court to execute political missions. Wherever politics demands his presence, he appears immediately.
Just look at the language and tone of the İBB indictment.
It is not a pursuit of justice—it is a salute to the Presidential Palace. And indeed, the message reached its destination.
Wasn’t the investigation supposed to be confidential?
Then how did a file not even shown to defense attorneys end up in Yeni Şafak, one of the most partisan newspapers in Turkey?
Through investigative journalism?
Of course not. It was leaked—deliberately, strategically.
Watch the TV debates about the İBB indictment. Do you really think commentators read the entire document and extracted noteworthy sections?
Every word they utter is part of a script—prepared in advance. The documents are handed to them. The media is no better than the judiciary. Both are long dead. The AKP government has destroyed them thoroughly. They appear to serve the AKP, but in reality, they harm it.
Even Bülent Arınç once admitted, “Those who defend AKP on TV do us no good—they harm us.”
He wasn’t wrong…
Could Kadir Özkaya have been crying over the state of justice?
Surely he sees the catastrophe unfolding before him.
Yet in the face of such a crisis, the correct response is not tears—it is action.
A true defender of justice would roll up his sleeves, fight for the restoration of rights, and confront injustice head-on.
But to step down from the official red-plated car… to resign from the powerful seat…
That requires courage.
Those who lack that courage merely cry.
When al-Andalus fell and the last Nasrid ruler Boabdil (Ebu Abdullah) surrendered Granada without resistance, he looked back from a hilltop and wept for the city he lost.
Much like Kadir Özkaya…
His mother’s words became eternal:
“Weep, my son, weep… You did not fight like a man. Now sit and cry like a woman.”
Is Kadir Özkaya any different from Boabdil?
Does he believe tears will save him—that crying instead of resisting will absolve him?
Highly unlikely.
He carries the burden of many violated rights.
And I am one of those people.
Crossing the Bridge of Sirat, according to Islamic faith, will be extraordinarily difficult for him.
What, after all, has emerged from the Court he leads?
Even its decisions carry no weight.
Just last week, the Court issued a “rights violation” ruling for Gezi prisoner Tayfun Kahraman.
The local court didn’t even bother to acknowledge it.
Did Özkaya even flinch?
As law professor İzzet Özgenç said, he could at least have shown the honor and dignity to resign.
But did he?
Certainly not.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç recently revealed that he visited two high-profile political prisoners—Selahattin Demirtaş in Edirne Prison and Osman Kavala in Silivri Prison. He spoke emotionally about both encounters and hinted that both men might be released soon.
Demirtaş’s wife, filled with hope, waited at the prison gates for four days.
In vain.
The doors never opened.
No one came out.
Demirtaş finally told her, “You’d better go home.”
Arınç said he was deeply moved by his visit to Kavala, thinking also of Kavala’s wife, Ayşe, daughter of renowned novelist Tarık Buğra.
But I must ask:
Why only two people?
He was already at Silivri. Could he not have visited Hidayet Karaca, the former Director-General of Samanyolu TV, who has been imprisoned there for over a decade?
I saw no mention of it.
I would have expected it.
He did not even mention Karaca’s name while speaking about justice and law—someone he knows personally, someone with whom he has surely shared many cups of coffee.
Did it never cross his mind that others remain inside?
After his own release, Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet Özer said something profoundly important:
“There are some symbolic names in prison, but there are also thousands we don’t know. Once inside, you see this. I ask myself how I never saw it before. These are some of the most valuable people Turkey has raised—people who could work for a freer, more equal, more just Turkey…”
That realization matters greatly.
When it comes to justice, the country’s landscape is horrifying—a true disaster.
From any jurist who has preserved even a fragment of conscience, we expect not tears, but struggle.
If Kadir Özkaya transforms his tears into a fight for justice, then and only then will they have meaning.
Otherwise, they are nothing more than a performance—a deception built on tears.
And that, sadly, appears to be exactly what they are.
