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TURKEY'S JUDICIAL establishment, to the relief of its government and the country's European friends, has pulled back from the brink. The Constitutional Court's decision on Wednesday not to close the country's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) should bring a welcome end to months of political uncertainty, and marks an important landmark in the ongoing struggle to reconcile secularism with democracy. The ruling will also weaken the position of those determined to keep Turkey at arm's length from the European Union.

Following the government's attempt to ease the ban on headscarves in universities, the state prosecutor had charged the Islamist-rooted AKP with engaging in anti-secular activities, and wanted the party banned and leaders, including Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, barred from politics for five years. But the court, set up by the military after the 1960 coup to defend the country's secular state, failed to agree a ban by the required 7-4 majority, deciding instead to deprive the party of some of its state funding. More than 20 parties have been banned for Islamist or Kurdish separatist activities over the years, including the AKP's predecessor in 2001, but none has been as popular as the governing party.