Council of Europe assembly wants to monitor Turkey again

The Council of State, Turkey’s high judicial body handling complaints and appeals against state and public institutions, said it had no jurisdiction in the case, state-run Anadolu news agency said on Tuesday.

The decision means Turkey has become the first country to be placed under monitoring for a second time, having previously being under full monitoring from 1996 to 2004.

“After clear decision by Council of Europe to put Turkey under monitoring, now suspension of EU accession talks big step closer”, Kati Piri, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey, said on Twitter after the decision.

The decision deals another potentially fatal blow to Ankara’s European Union membership hopes, as exiting the process was made a precondition of negotiations back in 2004.

Opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahçeli also criticized the decision and said it is null and void for Turkey.

After the vote, the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement that it “strongly condemns this unjust decision of PACE taken with political motives in contravention to the established procedures”.

MPs also raised concerns about Erdoğan’s promise to discuss reintroducing the death penalty, a move they stressed would be incompatible with Turkish membership of the Council of Europe.

The vote switches Turkey’s system from a parliamentary one to a presidential system, abolishing the office of the prime minister while greatly increasing the powers of the president.

Ankara’s fragile and often troubled relations with the bloc hit a new low during the campaign leading up to the referendum in Turkey because of “Nazi” jibes made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The resolution was passed with 113 votes, with 45 against and 12 abstaining. “It is purely a political decision”, said government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus on public TV channel TRT.

“It is clear that this right can not be established”, the report said.

Only last week, the Council of Europe’s anti-torture committee announced that the Turkish government did not give it permission for a report on Turkish prisons to be published.

Lawmakers from across Europe voted Tuesday to reopen a monitoring probe into Turkey over rights concerns, sparking anger from Ankara as its relations with the continent continue to slide. Mr Orban said that while the quality of democracy was important, the priority for Turkey was its stability.