Ahmet Necdet Sezer

Ahmet Necdet Sezer (born 13 September 1941) is a Turkish statesman and judge who served as the 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.

Early life Sezer was born in 1941 in Afyonkarahisar to Ahmet Hamdi Sezer and Hatice Sezer, Macedonian Turkish Muhacir parents who emigrated from Serres, Central Macedonia, Greece during the population exchange between Greece and Turkey following the Turkish War of Independence.

After finishing Afyonkarahisar High School in 1958, he graduated from the Ankara University Faculty of Law in 1962 and began his career as a judge in Ankara. Following his military service as reserve officer at the Military Academy, he served first as a judge in Dicle and Yerköy, and then became a supervisory judge in the High Court of Appeals in Ankara.

Sezer was a firm defender of secularism in Turkey, a frequent point of contention between him and the ruling AKP party. On many occasions, he openly claimed that Turkey's secular regime was under threat.

Sezer endorsed Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's candidacy in the 2023 presidential election.

Awards and orders Ribbon Award and order Country Date City Note Source 70px Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana 18 April 2002 Tallinn The Terra Mariana Engagement is one of the highest marks given by the Estonian President.