LEGISLATIVE

Further Representation:

• The Number of MPs will be raised to 600:

With the 2nd Article of the Bill, Article 75 of the Constitution will be amended and number of MPs will be raised from 550 to 600.

Will Of Youth in the Parliament:

• The minimum age of eligibility for candidacy will be lowered from 25 to 18:

With the 3rd Article of the Bill, Article 75 of the Constitution will be amended and the minimum age of eligibility for candidacy will be lowered from 25 to 18. Moreover, “performing compulsory military service” will no longer be a precondition for candidacy.

There is no possibility of forming coalision. 5 Years of Stability, Not Distress:

• Parliamentary and Presidential elections will be held together every 5 years:

With the 4th Article of the Bill, Article 77 of the Constitution will be amended and Parliamentary and Presidential elections will be held together every 5 years on the same day. If the required majority for presidency cannot be obtained in the first ballot, the second ballot will be held in accordance with Article 101 of the Constitution.

Seperation of powers is clear and sharp:

• The parliamentary status of MPs who are appointed as Deputy Presidents or Ministers will be terminated:

With the 10th Article of the Bill, Article 106 of the Constitution will be amended and if a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey is appointed as Deputy President or minister, his/her term of office will be terminated.

Powerful Execution, Powerful Parliament:

• Renewal of elections:

With the 11th Article of the Bill, Article 116 of the Constitution regarding the renewal of elections will be amended. According to the amendment, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey may decide to renew elections with a three-fifths majority of the total number of its members. In this case, general election of the Assembly and presidential elections shall be held together. The powers of the Assembly and the President of the Republic election of which are decided to be renewed together, continue until the election of these organs.

Powerful Parliament:

• Duties and powers of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey will be rearranged:

With the 5th Article of the Bill, the duties and powers of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in the 87th Article of the Constitution will be rearranged. According to amendment, scrutinizing the Council of Ministers and the ministers and to authorize the Council of Ministers to issue decrees having the force of law on certain matters will no longer be among the duties and powers of the Assembly.

Parliament makes laws without the influence of executive organ:

• The executive branch will no longer be empowered to introduce bills and the right of introducing bills will become exclusive to MPs:

With the 16th Article of the Bill, Article 88 of the Constitution will be amended and the right of introducing bills will be exclusive to MPs.

• Absolute majority of total number of the members of the Assembly will be required to adopt a law sent back for reconsideration by the President of the Republic:

With the 16th Article of the Bill, Article 89 of the Constitution will be amended. According to amendment, if the Grand National Assembly of Turkey adopts a law sent back for reconsideration by the President with the absolute majority of total number of members, the law shall be promulgated by the President of the Republic.

The Parliament will continue to exercise its supervisory power:

• The Grand National Assembly of Turkey shall exercise its supervisory power by means of parliamentary inquiry, general debate, parliamentary investigation and written question.

With the 6th Article of the Bill, Article 98 of the Constitution will be amended. According to amendment, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey shall exercise its supervisory power by means of parliamentary inquiry, general debate, parliamentary investigations and written question. A parliamentary inquiry is an examination conducted to obtain information on a specific subject. A general debate is the consideration of a specific subject relating to the community and the activities of the State at the Plenary. A parliamentary investigation is an investigation about the Deputy Presidents and the ministers conducted according to the fifth, sixth, seventh paragraphs of Article 106.

JUDICIARY

Independent and Impartial Judiciary:

• The expression “impartiality” is added to Article 9 of the Constitution regarding the judiciary:

With the 1st Article of the Bill, the expression “impartiality” is added to the 9th Article of the Constitution, so that the jurisdiction is to be used by independent and impartial courts.

Powerful and Independent Judiciary:

All of the members will be appointed by President and Parliament that are chosen directly by Nation. This means that, will of nation will be high influence on HSK.

• Regarding the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors;

• The name of the Council will be “The Council of Judges and Prosecutors”.
• The Council of Judges and Prosecutors will be composed of 13 members; substitute members will be removed.
• The Council will comprise 2 chambers which is currently 3.
• 7 members of the Council will be elected by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and 4 members will be elected by the President of the Republic.

With the 14th Article of the Bill, the “High” expression is removed from the name of the Council, number of the members of the Council is reduced to 13 from 22 regular members and 12 substitute members is removed by amending 159th Article of the Constitution.

The existing Constitution regulates that 10 regular and 6 substitute members of the Council shall be elected by judges and prosecutors, 6 regular and 6 substitute members shall be elected by the General Assembly of the Justice Academy of Turkey, the High Court of Appeals and the Council of State and 4 regular members of the Council shall be appointed by the President of the Republic.

With the constitutional amendment Bill, the bodies that have elected the members of the Council of Judges and Prosecutors will be changed. 7 members of the Council shall be elected by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (3 members from the High Court of Appeals, 1 member from the Council of State and 3 members from teaching staff in the field of law and lawyers) and 4 members (3 members from among civil judges and 1 member from among administrative judges) shall be elected by the President of the Republic.

According the Bill, the President of the Council is the Minister of Justice. The Undersecretary to the Ministry of Justice shall be an ex-officio member of the Council. This regulation is same with the current situation.

Civil Courts / Judicial System will be civilianized:

• Regarding the Military Justice; Military Courts, the High Military Court of Appeals and the High Military Administrative Court will be abolished and apart from the disciplinary courts, military courts shall not be established except for the state of war:

With the 13th Article of the Bill, apart from disciplinary courts, military courts shall not be established and in the event of war military courts shall be established exclusive to the crimes committed by soldiers in relation to their duties by amending 142nd article of the Constitution.

• The Constitutional Court shall be composed of 15 members:

With the 16th Article of the Bill, the number of members of the Constitutional Court is reduced to 15 from 17 by amending 146th Article of the Constitution.

EXECUTIVE

THE PRESIDENT

Execution body will work fast and flexibly/A New Government System is on the way:

• Executive power is exclusively vested in the President:

With the Bill, the executive authority belonging to President and Council of Ministers conjointly in the current situation is to be vested exclusively in the President and the provisions regarding Council of Ministers and the Prime Minister (Ministry) are to be excluded from the Constitution.

Party Member President:

• The person to be elected as President will remain to be engaged with his/her party

With Article 7 of the Bill, Article 101 of the Constitution is to be amended and the provision stipulating that the person elected as President shall be disengaged with his/her political party (if exists) is annulled.

Powerful Representation, Powerful Citizen:

• At least 100.000 electorate is to be entitled to nominate a candidate for Presidency.

Article 7 of the Bill also provides the opportunity of nomination for Presidency to the political parties which alone or together receive at least 5% of the valid votes at the most recent parliamentary elections (it is 10% in the current situation) and at least 100.000 electorate.

Cabinet is formed by President. Government is established directly and in a short time. There is no obligation to receive the vote of confidence from the Parliament.

Executive Duality (Double-Headed) in The Government System will be removed; A Stable System is on The Way:

• President is to be authorized to appoint Deputy Presidents, ministers and high-level public officials.

With the amendment in Article 104 of the Constitution by Article 8 of the Bill, Prime Ministry is to be abolished, Deputy Presidency is introduced, the power of appointing and dismissing the Deputy Presidents, Ministers and the high level public officials is granted to the President. In addition, the power of serving as Acting President is to be passed from the Speaker of the Assembly to the Deputy President.

Further Stabilization, the fundamental rights and freedoms will be under protection

• President is to be authorized to issue presidential decrees on matters related to executive power.

With Article 8 of the Bill, Article 104 of the Constitution is to be amended and provisions regarding the decrees having the force of law are to be replaced with presidential decrees. According to the amendment:

• The fundamental rights, individual rights and duties included in the first and second chapters and the political rights and duties listed in the fourth chapter of the second part of the Constitution, shall not be regulated by presidential decrees.
• No presidential decrees shall be issued on matters that are obliged by the Constitution to be regulated exclusively by law.
• No presidential decrees shall be issued on matters explicitly regulated by law.
• In the case of a conflict between presidential decrees and the laws due to differences in provisions on the same matter, the provisions of law shall prevail.
• In case the Grand National Assembly of Turkey enacts a law on the same matter, presidential decree shall become void.

Parliament supervises President / The System of Checks and Balances:

• The Criminal Liability of the President, Deputy Presidents and Ministers is to be prescribed:

Article 105 of the Constitution is to be amended by Article 9 of the Bill and the criminal liability of the President is to be stipulated. According to the current Constitution, the President shall only be impeached for treason upon the bill of at least one-third and the decision of at least three-fourths of the total number of MPs.

With Article 9 of the Bill, it is made possible to launch an investigation with a claim of commitment of a crime against the President on the bill of simple majority and with the approval of the three-fifths majority of the total number of the MPs by secret ballot. If an investigation is decided to be launched, a 15-member investigation committee in which the political parties in TGNA are represented in proportion to their strength is to be set up in order to conduct the investigation. The President is to be brought before the Supreme Court, provided that the investigation report of the committee which is to be prepared in 2 months, 3 months in case of extension, is adopted by secret ballot of two-thirds of the total members of the TGNA. According to the same Article of the Bill, the President about whom a referral to the Supreme Court has been made is deprived out of the right to call for new elections.

The procedure for initiating an investigation against the Deputy Presidents and the ministers is stipulated in Article 10 of the Bill. Accordingly, the quorum required for a decision to be adopted in order to bring those concerns before the Supreme Court is to be stipulated to be two-thirds of the total number of members rather than the absolute majority of the total number of members.

Powerful Execution:

• Renewal of Parliamentary Elections by the President:

Article 116 of the Constitution is to be amended by Article 11 of the Bill. Hence,   the President is to be authorized to determine the renewal of the parliamentary elections himself. Moreover, the incumbent President is entitled to stand for Presidency one more time if renewal of the elections is to be decided by the Parliament in the second term of his office.

Strong Economy:

A Single-centered decision mechanism will be established.

Decisions and interventions will be made quickly to adapt to the changing world conditions.

Unnecessary hierarchical in the system will become more horizontal.

• The amendment Bill foresees the adoption of a transitional budget act upon failure to pass the budget bill introduced by the President of Republic:

Article 15 of the Bill (amending Article 161 of the Constitution) brings the adoption of a provisional budget act if a budget bill introduced by the President of Republic fails to pass in the Parliament. If Parliament rejects to pass a transitional budget bill, as well, the bill orders an increase by applying the revaluation rate of the previous year budget.

• The General Commander of Gendarmerie ceases to be a member of National Security Council (NSC):

Article 16 of the Bill (amending Article 118 of the Constitution) terminates the NSC membership of the General Commander of Gendarmerie, while adding the Deputy Presidents to the Council.

THE STATE OF EMERGENCY

Parliament will approve the state of emergency, state of siege will be removed:

• According to Article 12 of the Amendment Bill:
• All emergency situations such as the state of war, mobilization, martial law, and the state of emergency arisen from grave public disorder or natural disasters etc. are united within the general concept of state of emergency.
• The President of Republic has the power to decree state of emergency.
• The parliament shall debate and vote the emergency decrees issued by the President of Republic within three months of their issuance.
• The emergency decrees become void per se, if the parliament fails to debate and pass the decrees within three months of their issuance.

TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS

Article 17 of the Bill, by adding a transitional provision (numbered 21) to the Constitution provides that:

• The general elections for the 27th Legislative Term (succeeding the ongoing term) and the presidential elections are to be held together on 11th of March, 2019. If the existing parliament decrees the reelection, the general and presidential elections will be held together.
• The incumbent members of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the President continue to act their duties.
• Within six months of the promulgation of constitutional amendments, the Assembly shall make necessary regulations in the Standing Orders and pertinent laws, which are required by the constitutional amendments. Likewise, the President of Republic shall make necessary amendments that are to be regulated by presidential decrees within six months after his/her inauguration.
• The members of Judges and Prosecutors Council are elected in thirty days and begin to act their duties on the fortieth day following to the promulgation of the constitutional amendments.

The statues of the existing military judges and prosecutors are adjusted due to the abolition of military courts in the peacetime.