ANKARA - The Parliamentary General Assembly approved on Friday the constitutional amendment.
A total of 465 MPs attended the voting at the parliament. While 440 of them cast their votes in favor of the constitutional amendment, 18 MPs rejected it, and 4 MPs abstained.
When the motion prepared by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is enacted, the expressions of ''ideological and anarchistic activities'' in Article 76 of the Constitution about eligibility for deputyship were changed as ''terrorist activities''.
According to the constitutional amendment, the second paragraph of Article 76 of the Constitution was re-arranged as follows: ''persons who have not completed their primary education, who have been deprived of legal capacity, who have failed to perform compulsory military service, who are banned from public service, who have been sentenced to a prison term totaling one year or more excluding involuntary offences, or to a heavy imprisonment; those who have been convicted for dishonourable offences such as embezzlement, corruption, bribery, theft, fraud, forgery, breach of trust, fraudulent bankruptcy; and persons convicted of smuggling, conspiracy in official bidding or purchasing, of offences related to the disclosure of State secrets, of involvement in terrorist activities, or incitement and encouragement of such activities, shall not be elected deputies, even if they have been pardoned.''
The arrangement in Constitution became parallel with the amendment which was done in article 312 of Turkish Penal Code in summer month. The amendment lifted the obstacle before some politicians and the AK Party leader Erdogan for being a deputy.
According to another arrangement, a sentence which requires that if a province or an electoral zone does not remain a member in the Parliament, by-election will be held, was accepted. According to the amendment in the fourth paragraph of article 78 of Constitution, by-election is held in the first Sunday after 90 days in such condition.
The by-elections will be done separate from local elections in every condition, if a province or an electoral zone does not remain a member in the Parliament.
The sentence in article 67 of Constitution which says ''the amendments in election laws is not implemented in the elections which are done in one year beginning from the date it goes into effect'' will not be valid in the first by-election in the 22nd Term.
Amendments have done for eight times in Constitution which was accepted in 1982 with the new amendment that is done today. Constitutional amendment became the first legislation action of the Parliament in the new term.
Constitutional amendment will take effect in the same day when it is published in the official gazette.
The law pertaining to Constitutional change will be presented to the Parliamentary Chairmanship to Presidency for approval.
Under Article 175 of the Constitution, the President of the Republic may refer the laws related to the Constitutional amendments for further consideration. If the Assembly adopts the draft law referred by the President by a two-thirds majority, the President may submit the law to referendum.
In case the law is submitted to the referendum partially, the articles, which are not the issue of referendum, are published in the official gazette. The law or the articles that are presented to the referendum, take effect in case more than half of those who attended the voting cast votes in favor.