ABSTRACT
Refah Partisi (Welfare Party) and others v Turkey , stands as an example of the importance of supranational judicial supervision on the protection of democracy. 19 Refah Partisi came to power in Turkey in 1995, and its leader
the Ottoman Empire. His party was accused of the introduction of Islamization measures to the country in violation of the constitution and the principles of secularism. Turkey’s constitutional court suspended the party, and its members appealed to the European Court of Human Rights on the violation of Article 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights (freedom of assembly). 20 The Court concluded that such suspension acted in conformity with the relevant provision in the Convention, and was necessary to sustain democratic governance in the nation. 21
The Court’s verdict is seen to be controversial. 22 It failed to provide an in-depth assessment of the political ideology of Refah. Understanding the philosophical roots of the organization is necessary in order to comprehend its compatibility with democracy. Nonetheless, the Refah principle could be defined in the view of this book as: any necessary measure taken by the relevant impartial authorities to impose a limitation on the political activity of a certain intolerant group based on the pillar of reasonableness, with the aim to protect democracy against its enemies. Such measure needs not to be taken by a supranational judicial body, where in this previous example, it was originally initiated by the corresponding nation’s constitutional court. However, the question of reasonableness is the most central criteria for the enactment of the previous principle, and thus will be the main focus of this book.
