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American Political Scientist Arato Reiterates the Consensus Message for a New Constitution Speaking at a meeting organized by TEPAV to contribute to the constitution-making process, Arato said the presidential issue would be an issue with which Turkey will face great difficulty.
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13/02/2013 - Viewed 1784 times

ANKARA – Stressing that the current environment was more optimistic in terms of the constitution-making process compared to his previous visit to Turkey two years earlier, Arato reiterated the consensus message.

The meeting, titled “Learning from Success, Learning from Failure: Constitution Making in South Africa, Hungary, Egypt and Turkey,” held at TEPAV on Wednesday, 13 February 2013, hosted Professor Arato as the keynote speaker. The meeting also was attended by members of the Constitutional Conciliation Commission from the AK, CHP and MHP political parties.

The meeting started with a short film about the Constitution Platform Citizens’ Assembly meetings carried out under TEPAV’s secretariat throughout the previous year in 12 provinces with the participation of thousands of people. Delivering the opening address, TEPAV Director Güven Sak stated that currently, political parties for the first time had concrete ideas on political issues, which served for a healthy starting point for the constitution-making process. Referring to the draft composed of 95 articles prepared by the Constitutional Conciliation Commission, Sak said, “a large part of the issues have been brought to the table. It seems that the majority of issues have been settled.”

Sak: “16 months is enough to write a new constitution, we have time”

Sak stressed that writing a new constitution took 16 months on average, according to international experiences, and the Constitutional Conciliation Commission of Turkey had used 6-7 months of this. Sak said, “Now the text will be written and then communicated to the public. People must discuss and understand the new constitution.”

The opening address was followed by a session moderated by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Levent Gönenç, Director of the TEPAV Institute of Legal Studies. During the session, Andrew Arato, Dorothy Hart Hirshon Professor of Political and Social Theory at the New School for Social Research, delivered a presentation.

Discussing the possible clash between the two tracks of consensual and majoritarian constitution making by drawing comparative lessons from country examples, Arato said, “Turkey might follow the majoritarian road, but there has been a consensual model around since the 1990s. In the past no party had the power to do this. Now this idea is around.”

Referring to the “horse race” between the sovereign model and the consensual model, Prof. Arato cited the constitution-making process in Hungary. Stating that the opposition party had not embraced the constitution, he said, “The first chance they get they will redo it. The new constitution should be accepted by as many people as possible. The same thing was seen in Egypt.”

Arato: “Presidency with the majoritarian model would be problematic”

Stressing that the antagonism had become sharp in 2007 with the Constitution Court’s decisions and the issue of headscarves and the “horse race” had started to be felt more, he said presidency with the majoritarian road would be problematic, at least as seen by the opposition parties.

Concerning the Kurdish issue, Arato talked about South Africa, where ethnic conflict was a major issue. He said, “Yet they came together to make a constitution that both parties accept.” Arato, concerning the judicial reform package introduced in 2010, stressed that judicial independence was a critical threshold for all parties.

Commission member MPs delivered speeches

At the end of the session, members of the Constitutional Conciliation Commission gave messages on the process. CHP MP Atilla Kart stated that putting an expiry date on the Commission had led to interventions in the work and caused the loss of credibility. AKP MP Ahmet İyimaya said that the first phase of the Commission’s works already had been planned to be completed by the end of 2012.

The meeting ended after questions and contributions from the audience.

 

Please click here for the video of Prof. Arato's speech.

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