AKP's President Tayyip Erdoğan said: "Let's prepare our proposals on the new constitution within the year and start discussions" in the group meeting of his party, held on February 10, which started the discussions of the new constitution. The discussion was brought back into the agenda when Bahçeli announced his 100 articled constitution proposal.

 

The draft "new constitution" that Bahçeli will first present to Erdogan and the AKP consists of 4 parts. In Bahçeli's proposal, the proposal of the Constitutional Court (AYM) will be removed from the status of the Supreme Court and Grand Chamber. While the AKP responded positively to Bahceli's proposal, the opposition displayed a negative attitude.

 

NO ARITHMETIC PROFUSION

 

According to the new system, 400 votes are necessary for the consitution to be accepted while 360 votes are necessary for the constitutional amendment to be brought to referandum. The number of AKP-MHP MPs are not enough for this change. Meral Danış Beştaş, member of the Constitutional Committee of the Parliament and Deputy Chairperson of the People's Democratic Party (HDP), evaluated the proposal for the "new constitution" amendment, which was not supported by the opposition.

 

SOCIETY MAKES THE CONSTITUTION

 

Beştaş stated that the constitution is a social contract and underlined that the constitution must be made by the society. Beştaş said: "AKP and MHP's saying that they prepared their own draft and insisting on legislating it is unacceptable in terms of constitution making rules and in world politics. In fact the freakish system called the Presedential System of Goverment has not been working and the AKP-MHP government want to make Turkey a country that doesn't have a constitution. In other words, they are making a constitution to the system they are currently implementing. A constitution that is decided by  one man, who issues any decree he wants and shut down any institution he doesn't want."

 

THIS IS NOT HOW A CONSTITUTION IS MADE

 

Underlining that the words of Bahçeli about the new constitution aims to keep the agenda misdirected, Beştaş said: "Turkey has huge problems. An airplane full of people dies on a daily basis due to the pandemic. People are hungry, violence against women is sky rocketing. This discussions of a new constitutions misdirects the agenda away from these problems. As HDP, we are a party that always emphasizes Turkey's need for a democratic constitution. Because even the current coup constitution is not applied. We came to a point that we have to demand the coup constitution to be applied.  The democratic constitution that we demand must be made with the people that involves everyone. The constitution in Turkey have been changed a lot. But this constitution tehy talk about is requited. This is not how a constitution is made. This is not how a country progresses.  We are faced with a proposition that will take Turkey further backwards in terms of securing rights and freedoms in the direction of democratization."

 

 

MA / Diren Yurtsever