Crews tested sound equipment, electronic voting devices and installed an emergency button at the cradle of Turkish democracy last week as Parliament returns from a two-month recess.
Briefly reopened in the summer for an extraordinary session, Parliament closed its latest term in early August with a bitter episode: lawmakers engaging in fisticuffs. On Tuesday, it will start a new shift after a speech by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. General assembly and subcommittees will launch new negotiations on a string of bills, some new, some left over from last term. As it was before the recess, debate over a new constitution will top the agenda of Parliament, whose speaker continues his talks with political parties on the issue.
Parliament, which was the scene of a heart attack death of a lawmaker last year, introduced an emergency button for the session’s chair who can now summon medical crews immediately in case of such an incident.
Post-recess Parliament will also be the first to fully adopt energy-saving measures, with lighting fixtures now installed with energy-efficient LED lights, including massive chandeliers dangling above the Ceremony Hall of Parliament.
Parliament’s 2023 tenure started with a frightening episode when two terrorists tried to storm into a building housing security forces a few hundred meters from Parliament, which was just about to begin a new session. Security measures around Parliament are expected to be heightened before the beginning of the new term. Parliament will be closed to visitors except a chosen few during the inauguration of the new term.
On Wednesday, lawmakers will convene the first General Assembly for a discussion on new laws covering teachers and their rights, before discussions on an omnibus bill for legal reforms. The Assembly will also discuss reports of a subcommittee that investigated a fatal mining accident in northern Türkiye last February.
Abdullah Güler, parliamentary group chair of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which retains the majority at Parliament, said one of the topics on their agenda would be a new, “civilian, democratic, pluralistic constitution.” “We will talk about it with other parties. We don’t have a draft text now but we will discuss methods to draft a text and whether we can sincerely work together,” he told Anadolu Agency (AA) recently.
Güler said they were also weighing establishing a new subcommittee on artificial intelligence. “It will investigate measures against risks AI poses as well as the level and diversity it reached,” he said.
