More than 60 amendments are up for debate at the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) as Türkiye weighs further improvement in judicial processes. The Parliament's Justice Committee approved the first 14 articles of the bill on Tuesday.
The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) presented the bill to the assembly's presidency last week, starting a process for approval where it retains a majority. Commonly known as the "judicial package," the bill seeks to improve the efficiency of judicial services burdened with workload and address the shortcomings in existing laws.
The approved amendments include a faster appeals process to verdicts under laws on bankruptcy, amendments to the Civil Code and aggravated sentences.
The bill seeks to reintroduce penalties for individuals engaging in acts on behalf of organizations involved in "terror crimes," treating them as if they were members of the organization. The annulled paragraph previously stated that individuals committing crimes on behalf of an organization would also be penalized for membership in that organization, with the punishment potentially reduced by half. This provision was limited to armed organizations.
The bill also allows people to appeal for compensation after they were acquitted or had a non-prosecution verdict after they were sentenced and released with judiciary control or ordered into a rehabilitation center for drug or alcohol addiction. It also increased the daily payment of administrative fines issued.
The AK Party accentuated "justice" in its name by introducing a series of judicial reforms in the past two decades, but the government's steps mostly involve patching up a Constitution drafted by the 1980 military junta. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan often calls for a new, "civilian" constitution to resolve judicial problems. Speaking at an event on Tuesday, Erdoğan pointed out the conflict between Türkiye's higher judicial authorities, namely the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court, which surfaced over an argument on the imprisonment of a man elected as a lawmaker from an opposition party.
Erdoğan said a unanimous vote at Parliament (whose majority was retained by the AK Party) would solve the problem of the dated Constitution. "Even without a new constitution, we will seek consensus on amendments to resolve the dispute between the courts. We have to end this debate that harms the judiciary," Erdoğan said.
He reiterated that as the executive branch of the state, the government is merely "a mediator" in this dispute. Erdoğan earlier announced his dissatisfaction with several rulings of the Constitutional Court but always stressed that they would respect the rule of law.
Since 1982, the current Constitution, drafted following a military coup, has seen several amendments. The bloody 1980 coup, which led to the detention of hundreds of thousands of people along with mass trials, torture and executions, still represents a dark period in Turkish political history.
The proposed changes focus on the topics of freedom, the right to security, the right to a fair trial, freedom of speech as well as the rights of women and the disabled. The enhancement of these rights and liberties has seen setbacks in the bureaucracy that have prevented these rights and liberties from being implemented properly. The plan has been prepared in accordance with the observations and reports of the international mechanisms that monitor human rights in cooperation with several human rights groups.
