MHP's Bahçeli slams high court decision preventing student oath

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The Council of State on Saturday (March 13) canceled a previous decision, preventing the Student Oath from being recited at schools.

The oath had been recited on every school day at primary schools since 1933 until it was canceled by the Ministry of National Education with a bylaw in 2013.

Following an appeal by the Turkish Education and Science Workers' Union (Türk Eğitim-Sen), the Council of State 8th Chamber canceled the bylaw in October 2018.

The government at the time claimed that the court exceeded its authority and refused to reintroduce the oath.

On Saturday, the Council of State Committee on Chambers of Administrative Cases annulled the 8th Chamber's ruling.

Bahçeli: "A grenade with its pin pulled"

This has been one of the issues that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have disagreed on.

Releasing a written statement yesterday (March 15), MHP Chair Devlet Bahçeli said the judgment was "scandalous" and "contradicting national realities."

"The decision against the Student Oath, which has been leaked to the media and has not been signed yet, has caused a great disturbance among our nation in the days when Turkey's spirit of national unity and resurrection climbed to the top," Bahçeli said in the statement.

"Nobody has the right to pull our country into a new chaos, fueling disagreements and provoking polarization," he said.

It wouldn't be "democratic" to prevent the recitation of the oath, he further said, calling the judgment "a grenade with its pin pulled."

He called on the Council of State to change its decision.

(EKN/VK)