Law and Politics in Turkey: What Metin Feyzioglu’s Downfall Means For Judiciary?

The president of Turkey’s Bar Association aligned himself with the oppressive politics of the post-coup era. None of his political patrons were able to save him from his doom.

In 2014, Metin Feyzioglu, then-President of the Union of Turkey’s Bar Associations (TBB), was catapulted to national fame when he rattled off one incriminating charge after another against then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his corrupt government “at a ceremony marking the Council of State’s 146th anniversary.” His televised tantrums from the podium unsettled the visiting prime minister who was among the audience. The irritated Erdogan then literally stirred President Abdullah Gul and Chief of Staff Gen. Necdet Ozel into leaving the ceremony before expressing his disapproval of the way Feyzioglu spoke (no less than an hour in breaking with the protocol) and dismissing his charges as baseless.

That public revolt against Erdogan made Feyzioglu a man to be reckoned with among Kemalist/nationalist opposition. But it did not take long for a radical shift in his political standing. In less than a month after the coup in summer 2016, he politically re-aligned himself with Erdogan, who ascended…