Today in History – 23 January

“I strived to keep politics away from justice”

The increasing oppression of the Democratic Party following the 1954 elections and its judicial intervention had also hardened the CHP opposition. In the notes he kept between January 20 and 31, 1957, İsmet İnönü expressed his discomfort with the government’s judicial intervention as follows:

The question of justice. I strived to keep politics away from justice. We kept the two separated even during the most drastic reforms. The case of Ali Saip is the most recent example. Until his death, Atatürk believed that he was involved in the assassination attempt (and Ali Saip was acquitted despite that conviction). The former judges believe that including the Ottoman era, such influence on judges had been unprecedented to this day. According to a judge of appeals, even if the laws are changed, it would take twenty years to set things straight. That is how badly people and their souls are corrupted.”

İnönü’s soul-searching nearly thirty years after the dissolution of the Courts of Independence is of utmost importance. His views, on the other hand, maintain the universal truth that once the sense of justice in society is damaged, it cannot be easily repaired.