Departing top Turkish judge slams politicians' 'interest' in judiciary

The outgoing president of Turkey?s Constitutional Court has criticized politicians? extraordinary ?interest? in the court?s agenda, opting to leave office a month before he was scheduled to retire.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday after members of the 17-seated Constitutional Court elected Zühtü Arslan as their new president, Ha?im K?l?ç recalled that he was supposed to retire on March 13, but submitted his resignation earlier because he thought it would be inappropriate for the court to have two presidents at the same time.

Referring to speculation over his previous decision to delay the election, K?l?ç said this was unnecessary as the court?s members had requested such a postponement in order to lobby ahead of the election.
?I don?t at all consider what is said outside and I don?t take it seriously. Why are some politicians so interested in the agenda of the Constitutional Court? They would know the answer to this question much better than me. So I will not stress these matters too much, but I just want to state that the only reason for the postponement was my friends? request,? he added.

?I don?t have any political plans. Don?t asses my decision [to retire] by making a connection with a political project,? K?l?ç said, in apparent reference to the fact that 5 p.m. on Feb. 10 was the deadline for civil servants to resign in order to be nominated as candidates for the June 7 parliamentary elections.
Later in the day, while speaking to reporters at parliament, Justice Minister Bekir Bozda? was asked whether he believe that he would work more comfortably with Arslan than he worked with K?l?ç.

?We have worked well with Mr. Ha?im K?l?ç, too. Perhaps, in the last one year, some things happened but when you look at it, we...