BY TARHAN ERDEM
RADIKAL- Columnist Tarhan Erdem writes on Turkey’s Constitution and the new public administration bill. A summary of his column is as follows:
At the latest Justice and Development Party (AKP) parliamentary group meeting, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke on the need for the new public administration bill. ‘Unless this bill is passed, progress on the path towards democratization will elude us,’ warned Erdogan. ‘Our bloated administrative structure is preventing the state from delivering efficient public services to our people.’ I agree with this statement completely.
However, Erdogan failed to mention that the bill would violate the Constitution. For example, it is incompatible with the following provision of Article 127:
‘The central administration has the power of administrative trusteeship over the local governments in the framework of principles and procedures set forth by law with the objective of ensuring the functioning of local services in conformity with the principle of the integral unity of the administration, securing uniform public service, safeguarding the public interest and meeting local needs, in an appropriate manner.’
In fact I believe that the bill is in violation of more than 14 articles of the Constitution, which is why we really should be discussing the Constitution, not the bill. Such innovative projects are doomed to find themselves in breach of this outmoded, insufficient Constitution.
New reforms usually contradict existing law since it’s impossible to simultaneously modify all the related provisions. The latest provisions would supersede the old ones so as to avoid contradictions in their implementation. However, if a law is in breach of the Constitution, it will be annulled by the Constitutional Court.
In truth, our current Constitution constitutes a real obstacle to reform efforts. When we were discussing new reforms for higher education, it was argued that Articles 130 and 131 were blocking the intended reforms. In addition, our Constitution is against the working of the free market. Let’s recall that the privatization of Tekel [the state alcohol and tobacco monopoly] was halted on the grounds that it would have violated the Constitution.
If this bill is approved, it will inevitably encounter similar problems. Whenever we try to make radical reforms, we’re doomed to be blocked by our own Constitution. Therefore, it must be immediately amended. In order to do that, our nation must begin a conversation about a number of key sensitive issues such as citizen-state relations, the definition of citizen, and our state institutions.
Our real problem is the Constitution; we can no longer live with it!