When Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development (AK) party convincingly rose to power in 2002, few could have predicted that within several years, they would be facing the tangible threat of getting outlawed by their country's own constitutional court.

On June 5, Turkey's constitutional judges decided to overturn the constitutional amendments allowing Muslim women to wear headscarves in universities, amendments that the government adopted in February. The move is widely seen as an indication of how the court will rule on another major case, requesting that the AK be disbanded for undermining the secular foundations of the Turkish state and that 71 of its members, among which Erdogan himself, as well as president Abdullah Gul, be banned from political activity for five years.

"This guarantees the closure of the party. I don't think we can talk of any calm before full chaos," Cengiz Aktar, political scientist at Istanbul's Bahcesehir University told Reuters.

Erdogan took office at the beginning of 2003, after his party received 34.3 per cent of the votes in the 2002 general elections. In 2007 he won a second term on the back of increased popularity, having gathered 46.7 per cent of all votes.

What Erdogan undoubtedly managed to do over the years was to secure steady economic growth and pull the country out of the severe recession it found itself in back in 2001. What he did not manage to do, however, was observe the secularist legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern Turkish republic.

A day after the crucial constitutional court decision, on June 6, AK's high-ranking executives gathered for an emergency meeting to discuss their line of conduct in the light of the slamming ruling. After six hours of debates, they came out saying that the ruling was unconstitutional since it was based on a de facto examination of the law allowing headscarves, while according to the constitution it could carry out and pronounce rulings only based on procedural examinations of laws.

The constitutional court was quick to respond to Erdogan's accusations. It said that the reason that made it examine the content of the law was the fact that it breached non-amendable articles of the constitution, such as article 2, which says that the Turkish republic is a secular state.

The court did not issue its ruling together with an immediate legal reasoning, which infuriated Erdogan and other top officials of the AK party even more.

"The speculations made on our court in the recent months saddened us and therefore we decided to announce the ruling in such a way [...] So we are not going to give any information on the details of the ruling until the reasoning is released because of speculations about our members," constitutional court president Hasim Kilic was quoted by Turkish daily Hurriyet as saying. He added that the reasoning would be made "as soon as possible".

Upon holding a meeting of AK's parliamentary group on June 10, Erdogan requested to see the reasoning of the decision that could turn to be the milestone for the future of the party and his own political career.

"The constitutional court must certainly explain why it examined the essence of the reform in the case," Erdogan said, as quoted by Hurriyet, adding that the parliament was the supreme legislative body in the Turkish state and no other body could defy its rulings. "Legislative powers belong only to the elected parliament. No one has the right to put itself in the place of the legislative [...] Everyone should refrain from actions that make the rule of law, absolute bindingness of the constitution and our constitutional institutions be matters of discussion. No one should try to benefit from such attempts. We have to take Turkey out of such an environment of `clash of powers' [...] Therefore, we need to act responsibly and we need to act with common sense. No one should forget the fact that both legislation and judiciary exist for the people. We cannot accept attempts aimed to harm legislation and judiciary. It is our common responsibility to further strengthen both of them," Erdogan said.

The judiciary and the military, who see themselves guardians of Turkish secularism, have long voiced their concern of Erdogan gradually increasing Islam's role in Turkey's political life, even though that is prohibited by Turkish constitution. Attempts to thwart this perceived agenda, however, have been criticised as undemocratic. Analysts also fear that should AK be thrown out of power, reforms that have brought Turkey unprecedented economic growth would slow down.

It seems that turmoil in Turkey will not end soon as the case for outlawing the AK is to be heard at some point over the next several months. The uncertainty is bound to affect the stability of Turkish market, since if Erdogan is to undertake drastic measures to secure his position, investments in Turkey are likely to slump, Reuters commented.

According to the Hurriyet, the AK has discussed calling snap polls or adopting new amendments to the constitution to reduce the powers of the top court. The first option, however, was not approved.

Meanwhile, the re-imposition of the headscarf ban caused uproar among Muslims and human rights organisations, who said that it deprived many Muslim women from getting higher education.

"This decision means that women who choose to wear a headscarf in Turkey will be forced to choose between their religion and their education," Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch said. "This is a truly disappointing decision and does not bode well for the reform process [...] The failed attempt by the AK party government to change the constitution on the headscarf issue only highlights its failure to redraft the constitution in its entirety, despite having promised to do so when it was re-elected. The 1982 constitution fails to protect human rights and should have been done away with already."