BY MUSTAFA ERDOGAN
STAR- People have long said that our country needs a new civilian constitution. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also touched on this issue last week, saying it would be discussed in April, after the local elections. There's a general public belief that we need a new constitution.
Advocates for a new constitution aren't just liberal-democratic intellectuals, but also supporters of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party and other parties, and those aligned to no party. In addition, we can hope that the Democratic Society Party (DTP) and the Kurds support this initiative. In spite of this broad support, it's clear there could be considerable opposition to the idea.
In fact, everybody should remember the strong resistance to a draft prepared by constitutional law Professor Ergun Ozbudun. Obviously, the AK Party's failure to take a firm stance on this hasn't helped things. I mention this because I would like to stress how difficult the initiative may be. But does this difficulty mean we should abandon the effort? I say no. On the contrary, Turkey urgently needs a civilian constitution, one which would concretize liberal-democratic principles, rules and institutions, because:
1. Turkey lacks a liberal-democratic understanding of the legitimacy of the political regime based on both the people and the law. The main reference of legitimacy is the official ideology in this regime. But this is a de facto situation for Turkey and also has a constitutional basis. So we urgently need a new constitution which would base the political regime's legitimacy on the people and universal law.
2. Nearly all our regime problems stem from this understanding of an ideological constitution. As the last few years have again confirmed, the resistance to efforts at liberalization and democratization draws its greatest strength from references to the official ideology. This has nothing to do with whether the references made to this ideology, which is defined as Kemalism, are sincere or not. It's also not about properly understanding the Kemalist way of thinking. The issue is that the unquestionable character of the state ideology grants immunity to those who try to guarantee the unchangeable character of the status quo.
3. The same official ideology is the basic baseline of certain institutions of the current regime, which are painted as the requirement of so-called pluralism but actually are reflections of an understanding which supports guardianship. Every time these institutions take the liberty to place the democratic process under guardianship, they legitimize this stance by referring to the official ideology. Likewise, a corporatist philosophy which was integrated with the official ideology makes it easier for certain organized sectors to be clamped together around the state - in other words, the status quo - against all sorts of pressure for change.
Consequently, besides other oft-cited reasons which might come to mind, the reasons I mentioned today are enough to show Turkey's need for a new constitution.