GUL MEETS OPPOSITION TO TALK CHARTER CHANGE

Hurriyet
May 7 2009
Turkey

ANKARA – President Abdullah Gul has initiated a round of talks with
leaders of the country’s opposition parties as part of a campaign to
promote proposed constitutional amendments.

Gul started these talks by meeting with Republican People’s Party,
or CHP, leader Deniz Baykal late Tuesday.

"A constitutional amendment should be a reform that will resolve
problems in Turkey," Gul said, according to sources. The president
also underscored that any amendment should be an extensive one and
that consensus should be sought on the issue.

The main opposition CHP had previously expressed its discontent with
the government’s attempt to amend the Constitution. During his party’s
parliamentary group meeting Tuesday, Baykal touched on the issue once
again and defined the debates over constitutional amendments as an
"effort to change the country’s agenda."

No support on tenure

Regarding the proposed amendment on presidential tenure, Baykal
said the CHP would not support such a change. The debate on this
topic started after a constitutional amendment in 2007 reduced the
president’s tenure from seven to five years. But since Gul was elected
before the amendments passed, some experts have argued that his tenure
should remain seven years, a prospect that the CHP and the Nationalist
Movement Party, or MHP, strongly oppose.

Besides constitutional amendments, Gul and Baykal also discussed
the issues of terrorism, opening the Turkey-Armenia border and
Azerbaijani-Armenian relations during their meeting. Gul held talks
with MHP leader Devlet Bahceli yesterday and will meet with Democratic
Society Party, or DTP, leader Ahmet Turk today.

The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, which has 337
deputies, not including the parliamentary speaker, needs the support
of 30 additional deputies to change the Constitution without holding
a referendum. The amendment package prepared by the government covers
some controversial topics that may cause debates.

One of the amendments aims to make it more difficult to shut down
a party by changing the procedure for such closures. Under the
proposed amendment, indictments prepared by the Supreme Court of
Appeals against a political party would be voted on in the Parliament
and the closure of a party will be decided in line with the voting
result. The amendment also seeks the support of three-fourths majority
of the Constitutional Court in order to shut down a party.

According to another amendment, the number of Constitutional Court
members would be increased either to 17 or to 21, and a majority
of the members would be elected by the Parliament. The Court of
Appeals and the Council of State oppose this amendment, saying it
would politicize the judiciary. The amendment would also restrict
the tenure of members to nine or 10 years.

The planned amendments to the Constitution also include a change to
the right of individual appeals to the Constitutional Court. Those
who cannot get a result from their application to judicial bodies,
or who think that they have been treated unjustly, would be able to
apply first to the Constitutional Court before taking the matter to
the European Court of Human Rights, or ECHR.