Turkey’s Constitutional Court on Thursday re-elected Zühtü Arslan as its president, according to the Hürriyet Daily News.
Arslan received the support of nine members in the vote, while his opponent, Rıdvan Güleç, received five. Kadir Özkaya, who withdrew from contention, won one vote only.
Arslan will serve as high court president for four more years.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appointed Yıldız Seferinoğlu, the deputy justice minister and a former Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy, as a member of the Constitutional Court, a post that was vacant. The appointment was announced in the Official Gazette on Friday. But Seferinoğlu, the fourth member appointed by Erdoğan, was unable to vote in the election due to a lack of adequate time on the high court bench.
Arslan was born in 1964 and received his bachelor’s degree in public administration from the faculty of political science at Ankara University.
He has a master’s degree in human rights and civil freedoms from the faculty of law of the University of Leicester and has a doctorate from the same university in the field of constitutional law.
In 2001 Arslan served at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). He also served as a member of the Plenary of the Press Advertisement Institution. In 2009 he was appointed as chairman of the Police Academy and taught courses on constitutional law, human rights and state theories.
Arslan was appointed by the president to Constitutional Court membership in 2012 after being nominated by the Council of Higher Education (YÖK). He was elected the chair of the Constitutional Court in 2015.
