The forcible dismantling or suspension of a constitutional order that derives its legal legitimacy from popular sovereignty and the national will constitutes a fundamental question in modern constitutional thought. This analysis reflects on the July 15 coup attempt as an effort at a constitutional rupture directed at the normative undoing of fundamental rights and liberties — an embodiment of ontopolitical tensions. This study grounds constitutional legitimacy in three axes: the relationship between norms and the constituent popular will, the ontopolitical distinction between power and violence, and the principle of pluralism.
Within this theoretical framework, the July 15 resistance is examined through the lens of “constitutional moments theory” and the concept of “constitutional patriotism,” while the destructive nature of coups is analyzed within the framework of the idea of the rule of law and the normative wholeness of the regime of fundamental rights and freedoms.
The constitutional order comes into being within a relational normative wholeness in which popular sovereignty, fundamental rights, the rule of law, and democratic participation mutually enable one another. Within this framework, the July 15 resistance is regarded as an exceptional constitutional moment that renders visible the protective capacity of the constituent will to reconstruct and revive the constitutional order at moments of crisis; and the failure of the coup attempt confirms that the ultimate guarantee of the democratic constitutional order lies in the will of the nation, which acquires continuity within the law.
