Turkish government continues to slam high court over Twitter ruling

ANKARA

Twitter logo on an iPad display is pictured next to a Turkish flag in this photo illustration taken in Istanbul March 21, 2014. REUTERS Photo

The government has continued its criticism of the high court’s ruling to lift a ban on Twitter, arguing that no individual application can be made to the court before exhausting all other internal legal paths.In a written statement, the Justice Ministry said the high court is not a “super appeal court” with the authority to overturn the verdicts of primary law courts.“On the Constitutional Court’s Twitter ruling, the applicants directly applied to the court without trying to go through the usual legal ways. The Constitutional Court should have rejected this application at the very start, on the grounds of Article 148 of the Constitution and in accordance with Law no. 6216,” the statement added.The statement followed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s harsh criticism of the court, saying that he “does not respect the ruling,” which he claimed “served the interests of Twitter instead of Turkey’s national interests.”The Justice Ministry accused the high court of using authority that it does not legally have. It also argued that the Twitter ruling may set a precedent for other individual applications to the court before other legal paths are exhausted, which would turn the high court into a court of primary law.