Geographies of Law in Turkey
There's too much going on right now in Turkey to offer any sort of comprehensive analysis, but I was struck by a brief news brief (in Turkish, here). As part of their investigation, the police visited the Istanbul house of Salih Kaan Caglayan the other morning. As it happens, he is the son of the Energy Minister, Tarik Zafer Caglayan (and it's the potential high-level nature of this corruption investigation that has everyone talking in Turkey). According to the news report, the police visited the house with a warrant, but because the house was registered not to the son but to the father, the warrant was not valid.
The broader point that interests me is this: We sometimes might talk about the law as something that applies equally in all places; that its jurisdiction is homogenous. But what a story like this reminds us is the very uneven ways in which the law comes to take force -- both because the house was registered to someone else and (especially) because that someone else was a government minister (and thereby afforded immunity from prosecution) that house (and whatever material evidence it might contain) was rendered exceptional.
Ah, bakalim neler oluyor Turkiye'de.
The broader point that interests me is this: We sometimes might talk about the law as something that applies equally in all places; that its jurisdiction is homogenous. But what a story like this reminds us is the very uneven ways in which the law comes to take force -- both because the house was registered to someone else and (especially) because that someone else was a government minister (and thereby afforded immunity from prosecution) that house (and whatever material evidence it might contain) was rendered exceptional.
Ah, bakalim neler oluyor Turkiye'de.
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