Not a healthy debate but a cacophony of deep-seated prejudices leads the conversation on a new constitution, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Monday.
“We are sincere in our efforts to introduce a new constitution and Türkiye is ready for it,” Erdoğan told a ceremony for the new judicial year’s opening in Ankara. “We must get rid of our coup-era Constitution.”
Erdoğan’s government has been pushing to overhaul Tükiye’s Constitution for over a decade now, which was enforced in 1982 following a military coup that led to the detention of hundreds of thousands of people along with mass trials, torture and executions, which still represents a dark period in Turkish political history.
Erdoğan insists the Turkish nation is “owed a civilian, libertarian and inclusive” new constitution, and his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has a comprehensive draft prepared by a scientific council during the pandemic.
When the new legislative term begins in October, the party will be launching a workshop to discuss a road map to a new constitution with the participation of academics and legal experts.
The goal is to produce a final draft that utilizes the two parties’ preparations, as well as the opinions of the general public, which officials said could include clashing opinions and provide a valuable framework to find common ground.
Since its founding, the modern Turkish state has been governed under four constitutions, with the first adopted in 1921, changing in 1924 and 1961 before the Constitution of 1982 was implemented.
The document has undergone nearly 20 amendments over the years to keep up with global and regional geopolitical conjectures. The most notable changes were introduced via referendums in 2010 by enabling the trialing of the 1980 coup plotters in civil courts and in 2017 by replacing the parliamentary system with an executive presidency.
The AK Party attempted an overhaul in 2007 when it employed a commission to produce a draft, but it was shelved upon heated criticism from the opposition. Since then, the party has been working on “stronger” material. Its proposed changes focused on freedom, the right to security, the right to a fair trial, freedom of speech and the rights of women and people with disabilities.
