President of the Constitutional Court, Mr. Zühtü Arslan, and the accompanying delegation participated in the 1^st Joint Conference held by the Association of Asian Constitutional Courts and Equivalent Institutions (AACC) and the Conference of Constitutional Jurisdictions of Africa (CCJA) in Bali on 4 October 2022 before the 5^th Congress of the World Conference on Constitutional Justice (WCCJ).

President Arslan delivered a speech at the Session on “Actuating the Bandung Principles on Equality of All People, Races and Nations in Asia and Africa”. Emphasizing the importance of the principle of equality in his speech, President Arslan stated that the principle of equality laid at the heart of modern idea of universal human rights, and that equality was a fundamental human right, which affected the scope and exercise of almost all other rights. President Arslan pointed out that the principle of equality was a sina qua non condition for establishing a just political order at both national and international level. He also expressed that the Turkish Constitutional Court interpreted the principle of equality as a constitutional provision prohibiting discrimination. At the end of his speech, President Arslan stated “The precondition for protecting the principle of equality is to respect and recognise the ontological status of ‘the other.’”.

Click for the full text of the speech delivered by President Zühtü Arslan.

Click for the Joint Statement adopted at the end of the meeting