CICEK SAYS THEY DESIRE TO MAKE SIXTH ADJUSTMENT PACKAGE LAW AFTER DISCUSSING IT AT PARLIAMENT ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON
ANKARA - Justice Minister and Government Spokesman Cemil Cicek said on Wednesday that if Parliamentary Advisory Board convened and took a decision, they desired to make the Sixth Adjustment Package law after discussing it at Parliament on Thursday afternoon.
Releasing a statement after Council of Ministers meeting, Cicek said that Council of Ministers and Parliamentary Justice Commission convened nearly at the same time and he added that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave information about his visits to Malaysia and Pakistan during the parts he was absent.
Cicek said that they reached a conviction that it was necessary to increase Turkey's existing political relations with those two countries to a further level and to discuss what could be done jointly in economic and commercial fields in line with this friendship and relation and to develop those relations.
Recalling that Parliament would work in July as well, Cicek said that there were laws to adopt within this period and they were trying to give priority to those laws and they were examining them.
Noting that they would discuss draft law regarding forming regional courts today, Cicek said that they decided to discuss the Sixth Adjustment Package tomorrow which was accepted at Justice Commission.
Cicek said that if Parliamentary Advisory Board convened and took decision, they desired to make the Sixth Adjustment Package law after discussing it at Parliament on Thursday afternoon.
Recalling that they had Fifth Review meetings with International Monetary Fund (IMF), Cicek said that they decided to adopt Labor Agency (Iskur) Law, Self-Employed (Bagkur) Law, Social Security Agency (SSK) Law and Execution and Bankrupt Law urgently following the Sixth Adjustment Package.
Cicek said that they also decided to discuss National Program in Council of Ministers meeting on Monday and Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul would give information about this issue during the meeting.
CICEK: ''WE WISH COLLECTIVE BARGAINING TO RESULT WITH COMPROMISE''
Cicek said that Turkey had to do two important things for democratization of Turkey, increasing its democratic standards and further improvement of implementation of basic rights and freedoms. The first one was to adopt the laws by amending them in order to increase the standards, he said, adding that the thing wanted to be done by adjustment laws was that. Cicek stated that secondly the implementation of the laws was also important.
''Our resolution in adopting these laws is understood better now because complaints in Turkey have to decrease by December 2004. We want to undertake part of the legal regulations within the year 2003, and we want to adopt an important part of them before the publication of the progress report. After that we must intensify on practice together with the public opinion... Foreign delegations who visit us say that they are impressed by the adoption of the laws in a fast way, but they expected more efforts from us regarding implementation of the laws... I hope we, as the whole Turkish society, launch efforts for implementation of the adopted laws, too,'' Cicek said.
In return to the measures considered to prevent violation of laws in practice, Cicek said that one of the important reasons of violation of laws was due to lack of education. Cicek stressed that this should not be ignored, adding that the main reason of the basic problems seen in the country was lack of education. Cicek stressed that all institutions had to be in a serious effort to train its own personnel, adding that Justice Ministry started a multidimensional programme about it. Cicek said that meetings were held with nearly one thousand judges and prosecutors about the decisions of the Human Rights Courts, their repercussion in Turkey and EU adjustment laws.
''Amending laws is easy, but mentality change does not come true rapidly. At this point, all of us had to show special effort,'' Cicek said. Cicek noted that if applications constituted crime, concerned prosecutors did what was necessary.
Upon a question about collective bargaining, Cicek said that negotiations recently started. ''We wish reaching compromise at the end of collective bargaining,'' Cicek said.
When asked when would the negotiations start about the seventh adjustment package, Cicek said that ''if we adopt the sixth adjustment package in the parliament on Thursday, preparations about the new package will speed up.''
(Öª-AÖ) 18.06.2003