The developments in the two coup cases are at the top of Turkey's agenda lately. The first case is a military coup that was carried out 34 years ago and according to the verdict of this case, Kenan Evren and Tahsin Şahinkaya, the leading military officials that realized the coup on Sept. 12, 1980, were charged with aggravated life sentences.This decision set a precedent for democracy in Turkey, which has endured four coups within its 90-year republican history. The second one is the Sledgehammer (Balyoz) case, developments regarding a coup attempt that was just that, an attempt. The Balyoz case was opened in 2010, when the coup plans organized in 2003 to overthrow the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government were revealed.Turkish prosecutors took action and detained more than 300 regular and retired soldiers after the confidential documents were published by Taraf, the newspaper I was writing for then. The soldiers were charged with "overthrowing the government by force" at the end of the trials. The Sledgehammer case also set precedence since a coup attempt was tried and its offenders were charged for the first time.Recently, the Constitutional Court decided that the rights of the soldiers charged in the Sledgehammer case were violated during the investigation and prosecution processes. Upon this decision, the domestic court, where the soldiers were tried, decided on the release of 234 generals. As a result the soldiers convicted of the coup have attempted retrial. It is known that the Constitutional Court made that decision since an illegal formation organized within the jurisdiction was revealed to have manipulated the case. This formation is claimed to be related to Fethullah Gülen's movement. Gülen is a former imam against whom some investigations have been conducted so far.The common belief among the public is that this formation, which acts autonomously within the state, has expanded the Sledgehammer case for its own interests. According to the claims, the Gülen Movement has made some additions to the Sledgehammer case in order to strengthen its hand in the army. So, it caused the charge of innocent officials along with the generals attempting the coup. As a result, the Sledgehammer case will be tried again and it is certain that this time there will be a fair trial since the organization of the Gülen Movement within the judicial system and its targets have been discovered. These two developments are a clear sign of the phase Turkish democracy is currently going through. New Turkey both shows that it has been demilitarized by trying coup attempts, and also points to the fact that it could carry out this process in accordance with the universal norms of law. Though the current government was targeted in this coup plan, a revanchist attitude is not adopted toward the defendants since jurisdiction is independent. Even the slightest violation of rights within the investigation and prosecution processes has turned in the defendants' favor. All these positive developments are an outcome of the legal and political reforms the AK Party introduced after the referendum made on Sept. 12, 2010. The EU, which is conducting full membership negotiations with Turkey, also has some duties in Turkey's democratization process. It must firstly open chapters 23 and 24, which include some legal and political reforms. Starting with these chapters, which are to be opened in priority and closed at the end by the EU, will positively influence Turkey's determination in performing relevant reforms. If the EU favors Turkey's legal and political democratization in order not to share the problems of Turkey, which will be its greatest partner in the near future, it should activate the relevant chapters in order to make its criticisms binding.