Tenth
President, jurist. He was born on September 13th, 1941 in
Afyonkarahisar. Graduate of Afyon High School (1958) and Ankara University
Faculty of Law (1962). In the same year, he started working as a prospective
judge in Ankara. He did his military service as a reserve officer in Turkish
Military Academy. He served as the Investigation Judge of Supreme Court in
Dicle and Yerköy Magistracies. Between the years of 1977 and 1978, he studied
for a master’s degree in Civil Law at Ankara University Faculty of Law. Sezer
was elected to the Supreme Court membership on March 7th, 1983. While
he was the member of the 2nd Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court, he
was appointed to the original membership of Constitutional Court on September
27th, 1988 by the President Kenan Evren from among the three
candidates determined by General Assembly of Supreme Court. He was elected to
the Constitutional Court Presidency on January 6th, 1998.
Before
being elected to Presidency, he was a person who was serving as the President
of Constitutional Court and who was known by the public. Coalition government
partners (Bülent Ecevit, Devlet Bahçeli, Mesut Yılmaz) of the 28th February
period could not come to an agreement with each other and could not reach a
consensus regarding the candidateship of one of their parties and therefore
with the suggestion of Bülent Ecevit, they chose Sezer, President of the Constitutional
Court at the time, as a candidate other than all of them. Sezer, was elected as
the tenth president of Turkey by Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) on May
5th, 2000 and took over the presidency from Süleyman Demirel on May
16th, 2000.
Turkish
economic crisis of 2001, which started with Sezer throwing the Constitution at Bülent
Ecevit in the National Security Council (MGK) meeting on February 21st,
2001, was called the “Black Wednesday” by the public. Although Sezer invited
the deputies’ spouses, who were wearing turbans, to receptions until the Adalet
ve Kalkınma Party (AK Party) Government was elected in 2003, starting from 2003
he stated that Çankaya Palace was a public sphere and did not invite any women
wearing turbans including the spouse of Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdoğan to Çankaya
Palace and this caused controversy.
In
addition, Ahmet Necdet Sezer was the President, who used the right of veto more
than any other President, and during his term of office he returned 67 laws, 22
Cabinet Decrees and 729 concurrent decrees to the parliament. Sezer was also
the president who granted pardon for convicts more than other presidents by
granting pardon for 190 convicts.
President
Ahmet Necdet Sezer also protected the D-8 project which was formed while
Necmettin Erbakan was the Prime Minister. D-8 countries, which were put
together by Erbakan by bringing 8 Islam countries together with Turkey being in
the first place, signed many cooperation projects in many fields from
agriculture to economy and from environment to energy.
Although
Ahmet Necdet Sezer’s term of office ended on May 16th, 2007,
parliament could not elect a new president because of unnecessary legal
disputes and an early general election was called for. He served as the 10th
President of Turkey until Abdullah Gül was elected as the President on August
27th, 2007 after the elections.
Ahmet Necdet
Sezer, who married artist Semra Kürümoğlu in 1964, is the father of three
children called Zeynep, Ebru and Levent.