Halid Ziya’nın Meclis-i Ayan Azalığına Atanmasının Sebep Olduğu Siyasi ve Hukuki Bir Kriz Münasebetiyle Dil, Edebiyat ve Hukuk İlişkisine Dair Bazı Dikkatler

Abstract

Halid Ziya (Uşaklıgil), who was appointed as the Chief Clerk of the Mabeyn-i Hümayun by the Committee of Union and Progress in 1909, was appointed as a member of the Meclis-i Ayan in 1911 by the will of Sultan Mehmed Reşad. But first of all, this appointment, which caused a serious political crisis between the government and the Meclis-i Ayan, soon dragged the whole Turkish public into a great chaos that made even the Tripolitanian disaster that had just begun at that time forget. The main point that triggered the crisis was that in Article 117 of the Kanun-i Esasi, the right to interpretation on the constitutional text was granted only to the members of the Meclis-i Ayan. As a matter of fact, the Meclis-i Ayan rejected the will of the Sultan on the grounds that it was against Article 62 of the Kanun-i Esasi. However, the Grand Vizier Said Pasha, who interpreted this article in a different way, did not recognize the decision taken by the Parliament and the aforementioned crisis, which started to grow rapidly from that moment, finally ended weeks later with the resignation of Halid Ziya from the member of the Meclis-i Ayan. Whatever the reason, I think that the real source of this crisis is a “language” and “interpretation” problem. Therefore, in this short statement, I will try to examine Article 62 of the Kanun-i Esasi, which is interpreted by both parties in different ways, within the framework of the relation between language, literature and law together with the aforementioned comments.