Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat, The Vice-President of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), and Sadullah Ergin and Bekir Bozdağ, the vice deputies for the AKP Group, submitted AKP’s final defense in the closure case to the Constitutional Court.

Fırat told that their defense consisted of three main binders: “The first part of these three files is the general legal defense of the party, the second part is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s answers to the comments. The third part is about the defenses of the other 70 people. The defense is 402 pages. There is no special section on the President. The amendment the Constitutional Court annulled is not included in the defense.”

The next stage will be the Supreme Court Chief Prosecutor Yalçınkaya’s verbal explanation and AKP’s verbal defense, the dates of which will be determined later. 

According to NTVMSNCB.com’s report, after this stage the rapporteur of the Constitutional Court will collect all the information and the documents about the case and write his/her report about the matter of substance of the case. While these procedures are taking place, both the Chief Prosecutor and AKP will be able to present additional evidence or written additional defense.

They may decide to cut the treasury aid

After the report is given to the eleven members of the Constitutional Court, the President of the Court Haşim Kılıç will determine a meeting day, on which the members will start discussing the matter of substance of the case.

The case will be decided by the eleven members. In case one of the members is missing or retired, the most senior of the four alternate members will replace the missing member.

According to the Constitution a qualified majority is needed to close a political party. Therefore 7 out of 11 members of the Constitutional Court must approve the closure. According to article 69 of the Constitution, the court may decide to cut the treasury aid to the AKP either partially or completely rather than closing the party permanently. (NZ/EZÖ/TB)

The Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya opened the case on March 14, 2008, on the grounds that the AKP had become the center of activities against secularism.