When a rogue leader targets the judiciary

Legalbrief reports that the state capture scandal that blew the lid off the Zuma administration left South Africa battered and bruised but forever grateful that the judiciary emerged relatively unscathed. But what happens when a government bulldozes the judiciary en route to wrecking the key establishments that are established to keep it in check? Case-in-point is Turkey where the 2013 corruption scandal saw the closest associates of former Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan implicated. As the matter mushroomed into a stand-off between investigators and the head of state (sound familiar?), Erdogan accused them of being part of a shadowy ‘state within a state’ seeking to tarnish his government. ‘We were dealing with the Turkish Guptas,’ said Atilla Dag, director of the Universal Rights Association, who addressed delegates at the Law Society of South Africa conference in Cape Town over the weekend. With a particular focus on the battered judiciary, Dag said many of Turkey’s greatest legal minds, ‘including prosecutors, judges and lawyers’ were targeted, harassed and detained. ‘This was big. Not like South Africa, this was really big. We are talking about 87bn euros (siphoned from the state),' he said. At the heart of the scandal was an alleged ‘gas for gold’ scheme with Iran involving the director of state-owned Halkbank (Suleyman Aslan) who had $4.5m in cash stored in shoeboxes at his home. Within months, numerous investigators and prosecutors were removed – on executive orders – from the case. As part of government’s ‘fight-back’ a decree was published removing 350 police officers from their positions, including the chiefs of the units dealing with financial crimes, smuggling and organised crime. Erdogan's government dismissed or reassigned thousands of police officers and hundreds of judges and prosecutors – including those leading the investigation – and passed a law increasing government control of the judiciary. The European Commission’s Turkey 2015 report stated that ‘the independence of the judiciary and respect of the principle of separation of powers have been undermined and judges and prosecutors have been under strong political pressure.’ Dag warmed that ‘the lessons are there for all to see’ and he urged delegates to raise awareness about the crisis.