Ahmet Necdet Sezer

Ahmet Necdet Sezer
Sezer in 2002
10th President of Turkey
In office 16 May 2000 – 28 August 2007
Prime Minister	Bülent Ecevit Abdullah Gül Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Preceded by	Süleyman Demirel
Succeeded by	Abdullah Gül
President of the Constitutional Court
In office 6 January 1998 – 4 May 2000[1]
Preceded by	Yekta Güngör Özden
Succeeded by	Mustafa Bumin
Personal details
Born	(1941-09-13) 13 September 1941 (age 83) Afyonkarahisar, Turkey
Political party	Independent
Spouse	Semra Kürümoğlu
Children	3
Alma mater	Ankara University, Law School
Profession	Judge
Signature

Ahmet Necdet Sezer (Turkish pronunciation: [ah'med nedʒ'det se'zæɾ]; born 13 September 1941^[2]) is a Turkish statesman and judge who served as the tenth president of Turkey from 2000 to 2007. Previously, he was president of the Constitutional Court of Turkey from January 1998 to May 2000. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey elected Sezer as president in 2000 after Süleyman Demirel's seven-year term expired. He was succeeded by Abdullah Gül in 2007.

Following his legal career, Sezer became a candidate for the presidency with the joint support of many political parties in Parliament. Following the 2000 presidential election, he took an ardent secularist approach on issues such as the headscarf, holding the view that secularism in Turkey was under threat. A quarrel between Sezer and Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit in 2001 led to a financial meltdown, attributed to the weakness of the coalition government as well as to the large debt owed to the International Monetary Fund.

The landslide victory of the conservative Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the 2002 general election led to strong opposition from President Sezer, who vetoed several proposed laws and referred others to the Constitutional Court. These included laws on banking reform and the lifting of the political ban on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. During receptions at the presidential palace, Sezer refused to allow women wearing the headscarf to attend citing the laws on the separation of religion and state at the time; this resulted in the wives of Abdullah Gül and Erdoğan, Hayrünnisa Gül and Emine Erdoğan respectively, being barred from attendance. Erdoğan later said in public that he had 'suffered a lot' from Sezer.^[3]