Erdoğan’s new found respect for the Constitutional Court

The release of 230 officers who had been accused in the “Sledgehammer” (Balyoz) case of conspiring to overthrow the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has left Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a quandary. He is praising the Constitutional Court for ruling that the defendant’s rights were violated, but this is the same court that he declared war on a few months ago.

Erdoğan is now reminding everyone that it was his government that introduced the right of individual petition to the Constitutional Court in order to obviate the need for Turks to apply to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). It was this right that resulted in the collapse of the Balyoz case.

After the release of the officers Erdoğan even said, somewhat cynically, that if they were not given the right to petition the Constitutional Court individually, and had applied to the ECHR instead, they would still be in prison, because Ankara would then merely have paid the fine meted out to Turkey by ECHR while still keeping the officers in prison.

“We don’t expect any thanks from them. Let them know who is struggling for democracy in this country, that is enough,” he said after the officers were released. Such remarks are unlikely to reduce the anger felt by those who were incarcerated, given the enthusiastic support that the government gave to the prosecutors who initially brought the charges against them.

Many also recall that Erdoğan only became a defender of the accused officers after he broke up with Fethullah Gülen, whose supporters in the judiciary he now accuses of having plotted against members of the military. It is these same supporters Erdoğan is accusing of having conspired to topple his government by...