From a Speech by Mustafa Kemal on November 5, 1925
on the occasion of the opening of the new law school in Ankara

".... The negative and overwhelming force that has condemned our nation to decay, that has ultimately broken and defeated the men of initiative and drive whom our fecund nation has in no period failed to produce, is the law that has hitherto been in your hands, the law and its faithful followers....

Think of the Turkish victory of 1453 the capture of Istanbul, and its place in the course of world history. That same might and power, which in defiance of a whole world made Istanbul for ever the property of the Turkish community, was too weak to overcome the ill-omened resistance of the men of law and to receive in Turkey the printing press, which had been invented at about the same time. Three centuries of observation and hesitation were needed, of effort and energy expended for and against, before the old laws and their exponents would permit the entry of printing into our country. Do not think that I have chosen a remote and ancient period, incapable of resuscitation, to illustrate the old law and the old lawyers. If I were to start giving you examples of the difficulties caused during our new revolutionary era, to me personally, by the old law and its exponents, I would run the risk of overburdening you.... All these events show that the greatest and at the same time the moat insidious enemies of the revolutionaries are decayed laws and their decrepit upholders....

It is our purpose to create completely new laws and thus to tear up the very foundations of the old legal system..."

From: [BL02a p. 274]