State of law thought in late Ottoman statesmen: The case of Tunisian Hayreddin Pasha, Ahmet Midhat Pasha and Said Halim Pasha

The rule of law is a state in which the law binds the state in its business and operations, fundamental rights and freedoms are guaranteed and limited power is institutionalized. The state of law, which emerged in the West, entered the Ottoman Empire in the Tanzimat Period and developed during the Tanzimat and the First and Second Constitutional periods. In the Ottoman Empire, the rule of law was identified with the constitutional monarchy and the constitution. Although it cannot be said that this understanding meets the qualifications of the rule of law, the core of the rule of law can be observed in the reforms made. Intellectuals and bureaucrats of the state saw salvation in constitutionalism and the constitution. For this reason, to analyze the development of the rule of law in the Ottoman Empire, it is necessary to analyze the thought systems of the influential statesmen of the period. For this reason, Hayreddin Pasha of Tunisia for the Tanzimat period, Midhat Pasha for the First Constitutional period and Said Halim Pasha for the Second Constitutional period were chosen as the sample of this study. This study aims to examine the contributions of the statesmen to the development process of the rule of law in the thought system. The study includes Tanzimat, the First Constitutional period and the Second Constitutional period approaches to the rule of law through the ideas of statesmen of those periods. It is clear that the main goals of the statesmen discussed are not to establish a full-fledged rule of law but to save the state. In other words, the rule of law has been instrumentalized. However, they also pioneered policy and intellectual developments that paved the way for the rule of law. A literature review was made using primary and secondary sources in the study. These sources were interpreted with descriptive analysis and thematic content analysis techniques.