Editing Justice and Development Party (section)

==History==
===Closure cases===
The Justice and Development Party has faced two closure cases in its history. Just 10 days before the national elections of 2002, Turkey's chief prosecutor, Sabih Kanadoğlu, asked the Turkish constitutional court to close the Justice and Development Party, which was leading in the polls at that time. The chief prosecutor charged the Justice and Development Party with abusing the law and justice. He based his case on the fact that the party's leader had been banned from political life for reading an Islamist poem, and thus the party had no standing in elections. The European Commission had previously criticized Turkey for banning the party's leader from participating in elections.

The party again faced a closure trial in 2008. At an international press conference in Spain, Erdoğan answered a question of a journalist by saying, "''What if the headscarf is a symbol? Even if it were a political symbol, does that give right to ban it? Could you bring prohibitions to symbols?''" These statements led to a joint proposal of the Justice and Development Party and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party for changing the constitution and the law to lift a ban on women wearing headscarves at state universities. Soon afterwards, Turkey's chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya, asked the Constitutional Court of Turkey to close down the party on charges of violating the separation of religion and state in Turkey. The closure request failed by only one vote, as only 6 of the 11 judges ruled in favour, with 7 required; however, 10 out of 11 judges agreed that the Justice and Development Party had become "''a center for anti-secular activities''", leading to a loss of 50% of the state funding for the party.