The Marathon Continues in the Eastern Black Sea: Trabzon to Speak on the New Constitution The tenth of the Constitution Platform Citizens’ Assembly will be held in Trabzon on Saturday, 7 April, 2012.

ANKARA – On Saturday, 7 April 2012, citizens from Trabzon will discuss the issues they want to be addressed in the new constitution. The previous meetings of the Constitution Platform Citizens’ Assembly series were held in Ankara, Konya, Edirne, Diyarbakir, Izmir, Antalya, Samsun and Bursa. The citizens’ assembly in Trabzon also aims to raise the views, demands and expectations of the people about the new constitution within a free and civilized atmosphere of discussion and reconciliation.

The series is presented by the Constitution Platform initiative group, made up of thirteen professional organizations and trade unions. The group, which was started with the slogan “Turkey Speaks” and with the secretariat of TEPAV, is holding broad-participation meetings in several cities throughout 2012. The Group, which aims to reach hundreds of participants with each meeting, will be the biggest event for deliberative democracy in Turkey.

The Platform makes keen efforts to ensure the impartiality of the meetings. It uses innovative and special methods in both the identification of meeting participants and the organization of the meeting content.

Discussions will be drafted as a report

The framework to be drawn throughout the citizens’ meetings is expected to contribute to the establishment of consensus within the Turkish National Assembly. At the end of the citizens’ assembly series, preferences, expectations, hopes and concerns of the people about the new constitution will be drafted as a report individually for each provincial assembly. Also, the common and distinctive features of the discussions in each provincial assembly meeting will be analyzed in a technical report within a constitutional framework.

Results will be shared with the people

Reports will be submitted to the Constitution Committee of the Turkish National Assembly and simultaneously to the public opinion via the websites of the Constitution Platform and TEPAV, which carries out the secretariat of the assembly meetings. Visitors from the public and from the “Constitution Volunteers” who participated in citizens’ assembly meetings will be able to leave comments.

The first meeting of the Constitution Platform –Turkey Speaks Citizens’ Assembly series was held on Sunday, January 8, 2012 in Ankara, followed by the meetings in Konya, Edirne, Diyarbakir, Izmir, Antalya, Samsun and Bursa. Also, a special meeting was held in Ankara with the participation of women on the International Women’s Day, Thursday, March 8, 2012 and in Samsun on March 25, 2012 with the participation of the youth.

The meetings which host hundreds of citizens started with opening remarks by TOBB President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu and TNA Speaker Cemil Çiçek. The opening ceremony was attended by professional organizations, union confederations and civil society organizations as well as Constitutional Committee member MPs.