Turkey's top court convened Thursday to decide whether to cancel a law allowing women to wear Islamic headscarves in universities, a ruling that could set off a chain reaction for the Islamist rooted governing party and prime minister.

The law, pushed through by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), is part of a separate case that seeks to ban the party on charges that it is covertly seeking to replace the secular order with an Islamist regime.

If the Constitutional Court rules against the government on the headscarf change, it could be an indication that it will also go against the AKP when it rules on whether to ban the party and bar 71 members, among them Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from politics, observers say.

It was not immediately clear whether the court would issue a verdict Thursday as the headscarf change is just one of several items to be discussed in the session.

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