Turkey's Supreme Election Board (YSK) is the only body that has jurisdiction over taking care of complaints about elections, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ said Saturday, in response to main opposition Republican People's Party's attempts to appeal referendum results to the Council of State and the Constitutional Court. Bozdağ explained that precedents show these two bodies legally do not have the prerogative to take care such matters.
"The YSK has full prerogative over all fraud allegations, complaints and appeals and making final decisions about these," Bozdağ said in a series of messages posted on his official Twitter account.
He continued by noting that the Council of State or the Constitutional Court do not have the jurisdiction over these matter and therefore it is useless for the CHP to submit appeals to these institutions.
"In the case of an appeal, despite the aforementioned facts, both institutions do not have any other choice but to reject such appeals" Bozdağ said, adding that precedents show the Constitutional Court has rejected such appeals based on "unacceptableness," while the Council of State has made tens of rejection decisions in the past.
Bozdağ also said that the decisions made by the people cannot be overridden in democracies, and the judiciary cannot trump the people's will.
"Ballot box results and the people's will cannot be disregarded or altered through court decisions and the people's decision is binding for everyone" the justice minister said and noted that those who defend democracy are supposed to respect and accept the people's decisions even if they do not like those decisions.
