Parliament Commission only 'revising' and not 'rewriting' charter


ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Vercihan Ziflioğlu vercihan.ziflioglu@hurriyet.com.tr

Parliament’s Constitution Conciliation Commission is not writing a new charter, but rather revising the charter formed in 1982 after the military coup, lawyer Mehmet Uçum told reporters yesterday at the announcement of a report titled “The Making of a New Constitution in Turkey,” published by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV).

Uçum said that the new civilian charter should be “public-focused.”

Only the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) could agree on a definition of citizenship which does not emphasize ethnic identity, while the main opposition Republican and People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalistic Movement Party (MHP) insisted on the opposite, said the report.

Journalist Etyen Mahçupyan, also a writer of the report, said that the AKP has three major problems to resolve: the Kurdish question, military tutelage and the Constitution.

March/28/2013