General Assembly

Plenary, or the General Assembly, is TGNA’s highest and final decision organ where oversight and scrutiny of the executive as well as legislation take place. Government bills and proposals of law can become law, if only they are adopted by the Plenary. Plenary is the first stage in the legislative process, when draft legislation is debated in front of all Deputies, and more importantly, before political leaders. Plenary sessions are also broadcasted nation-wide.¹⁸⁸ It is doomed to become a forum on which a long and

187 Interview; March 2012.

188 In July 2011, the Speaker of the Parliament ‘decided’ to restrict the broadcast of Parliamentary debates to five hours a day—from 14.00- to 19.00—and only three days a week—Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday—because “longer broadcast hours created an undue burden” for the Turkish Radio and Television, TRT, and was not in line with the Protocol dated 1995. Later, this was even reduced to four hours a day because “broadcast of the TRT sports programmes were negatively affected”. Vatan daily, 21 February 2013.

‘Meclis Tv icin kampanya!’. 22 March 2013. http://haber.gazetevatan.com/meclis-tv-icin-kampanya/516569/9/Haber.

sometimes fierce political—occasionally turning physical—struggle takes place between those who are supporting the draft legislation and those who are against it.

Plenary works three days a week: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 15.00 to 19.00. However, in practice, it gathers earlier and works into late night, sometimes early morning. Plenary agenda and the working calendar, per the Rules of Procedure, are drawn up by the Board of

Spokesmen, eventually subject to Plenary vote.¹⁸⁹ Bills, draft laws and other

‘business’ that come from the Committees are debated and voted on,

normally Wednesdays and Thursdays. Plenary agenda is prepared for one or two weeks, on Tuesdays, but updated daily. It is printed each day the

Plenary is in session, distributed to Deputies and posted in the web-site of TGNA.

Reports from the committees, once printed in the TGNA Print House, are first given a ‘Serial Number’, and then distributed to party groups,

committees, Deputies, relevant departments within the General Secretariat, and finally published in the ‘List of Incoming Papers’¹⁹⁰. Only after 48 hours from their receipt, they are included in the relevant parts of the

Plenary Agenda, as final items. However, since the Agenda can be amended at any time, by the Board, and failing that, by the governing/majority party, government-initiated bills or proposals of law by the governing party Deputies, i.e. the party group, always have the chance to jump up higher in the agenda. If this 48-hour time lapse is ignored and a draft bill or a

proposal of law is suddenly included in the Agenda, all actors involved in

189 The Board of Spokesmen is composed of the Speaker and one representative of each of the party groups. It makes its decisions by consensus. The Plenary follows the proposal as agreed by the Board. If the Board fails to agree, the vote of the Plenary—that is of the majority or the governing party—on the agenda is decisive and final. See; Rules of Procedure, Art. 19, 49.

190 List of Incoming Papers: This list includes all bills, draft laws, official communication (tezkereler), committee reports, and reference information related to questions,

parliamentary inquiries, general debates, motions of censure and parliamentary investigations.

the legislative business—Deputies, legislative experts, parliamentary advisors—would be in trouble for making necessary preparations for the impending debate.

Like the situation in committees, the Plenary stage of legislation is also open to amendments. It is possible to table amendments to draft legislation during the course of plenary discussions, even immediately before the voting on any one article takes place. Perhaps one the major problems of the legislative process in Turkey—poorly developed draft texts of law—makes such amendments inevitable. Because, they are not prepared with the widest possible participation, consultation and inputs not only from state

institutions, but also from individual experts and the civil society. However, as evidenced by the high number of legislation amending existing laws, and repeated complaints from all involved, unilateral and arbitrary amendments, proposed at Plenary stage—imposed by the governing majority, alone cannot solve the problems originating from the exclusive and ‘politically’

confrontational, conflictual process of law-making. Peer Review Report, pointed to the link “between legislative procedures and the quality of legislation”:

The high volume of legislative business; […] the tight deadlines imposed; an expectation on the part of the government to be able to proceed speedily with its bills; imbalances in committees’ legislative workload; the practice of late additions to the plenary agenda; and ample opportunities for introducing amendments to bills during the final

plenary stages of the legislative process, combine to make the in-depth consideration of bills and draft laws difficult. (SIGMA 2010: 12;

Neziroglu & Bakirci 2011: 59)

The problem of ‘quality—in legislative process—can best be seen in the odd practice of ‘norm laws (temel kanun)’—as understood in Turkey and explains several illnesses of Turkish political system—and political culture.

The ever-pressing need to pass as many laws as possible, in as short a time as possible, has prompted the ‘invention’ of mechanisms intended to

speed up the legislative process. An amendment to the Rules of Procedure in 1996, introduced a ‘special method of deliberation’ for Basic Laws—or, more correctly, for draft legislation considered ‘norm’ law¹⁹¹—even if they are not per se. Actually, looking at the way this ‘mechanism’ is practised and at its results, one can better call it the method for NOT to deliberate.

When the Plenary decides to consider a government bill or draft law as a

‘norm law’, its articles are grouped into sections not exceeding 30 items and the Plenary takes each group as a whole for consideration, not individual articles one by one as usual. Time reserved for each ‘group’ is shorter and there is much less debate. Motions for amendments are restricted to two per article and they are not debated before being voted on. Sometimes even laws which cannot possibly be considered ‘norm’ law can be subjected to a similar procedure just because they have several articles—or even if they have less than 30 articles altogether. It is worrisome for the quality of legislation in the TGNA that the ratio of such ‘basic’ laws has been in constant increase since 1991 when this ‘method’ was first introduced into the Turkish legal system, reaching to 55% of all laws—and 60% of the articles—passed by the Parliament during the 23rd Term. (Iba 2011: 197-99)

The ultimate shape this ‘degeneration’ of the legislative process can take is the practice of bag-law which literally means one big ‘law bag’, either amending several laws of completely different nature or introducing new articles to several laws, which are, again, of different nature, unrelated and the areas they regulate may not overlap even remotely. It has become

customary that into such ‘bags’ anything, any ‘regulation’ or ‘de-regulation’

can be dropped at any time. Sometimes this happens early in the morning, while few Deputies, having stood against the legislative marathon of a long

191 Basic Laws are, in some sense, ‘norm’ laws. The Rules of Procedure describes them as

‘those laws containing general principles having fundamental and systematic effects on a branch of law entirely, stipulating essential norms that should be maintaied in enacting other laws in this branch’. However, those laws named ‘norm’ or ‘basic’ are of the same status as any other law in the Turkish legal system. See; Rules of Procedure, Art. 91.

day and night, almost asleep and can hardly question the necessity or real rationale behind a motion suddenly tabled.¹⁹²

Parliamentary staff rightly describe the Committees as “kitchen of the Parliament”. Since the dishes are already prepared (?) in the ‘kitchen’, the Plenary is where they are served. One may add some ‘salt’ or ‘pepper’, giving some additional flavour, but cannot serve a completely new dish. In practice, the exclusive right of introducing amendments is reserved for the majority party.

The Plenary, like the committee work, is strictly controlled by the Government. The parliamentary agenda is decided and distributed, virtually at the last minute. Legislative time is allocated as the Government sees fit.

The practice of late additions to the Plenary agenda is also common. There is not a rolling legislative plan that clearly indicates what the Government is intending to legislate and what its priorities are so that not only the political opposition, but also civil society can know and take initiative to

‘participate’. The timing of the submission of bills, setting the agenda, deciding priority bills, allowing debate on particular bills or individual articles, supporting or not supporting motions for amendments are all at the discretion of the executive.¹⁹³

192 A typical example of such a motion occurred on 26/27 June 2009. During the debate for amending the Law No 5271, Art. 250, on the “authority of civilian Criminal Courts over military personnel for certain crimes”, governing party tabled a motion amending one single word, replacing ‘hali dahil (including the case of)’ with ‘halinde (in case of)’, leading to fundamental consequences of major political and judicial significance. This last minute critical change was introduced, minutes before it was tabled, to opposition MPs present in the Plenary as an ‘editorial correction’, early in the morning, at 01.05 and received unanimous backing. See; Law No 5918, Art. 7. 6 January 2013.

http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/kanunlar/k5918.html.

193 Typical examples of how this exclusive, self-claimed right can be abused by the

governing majority were provided by two motions related to the Greater Municipality Law, Art 2, first in the Committee of Internal Affairs and then in the Plenary respectively. The borders of two large municipalities in Istanbul—Sisli and Sariyer—were amended by a motion made—and supported—by the governing party MPs in the Committee. Later, during the Plenary debate, early morning on 9 November 2012, at 3 AM, this time a motion

The opportunity for introducing last-minute amendments¹⁹⁴ from the floor during the Plenary stage of the legislative process does not allow proper consideration of bills and draft laws. This practice largely ignores any civil society involvement. As envisaged in Art 88 of the Rules of Procedure, it is always possible to recommit the bills from the Plenary to Parliamentary committees, particularly when major amendments are

suggested, to allow a thorough (re)consideration of amendments—hence an opportunity for civil society to participate. But, this is seldom done and it is very difficult to ensure—once such amendments are introduced in the Plenary—that bills are internally consistent.

There is almost no time dedicated or reserved for Parliamentary oversight or scrutiny. There are high number of written questions and requests for Parliamentary inquiries, however most of them remain unanswered, when an answer is actually given, it is most likely to be perfunctory.

There is not a system of rapporteurs, akin to those operated in some Parliaments in Europe. Regulatory Impact Assessments, even if they are prepared—cursorily—are not made available to the TGNA. Committee reports, as discussed above, are made available. However they mainly reflect the respective political positions of the political parties and even if some important technical, procedural details are included in statements of dissenting opinion lodged by opposition MPs, they are simply ignored. The Plenary debate is built upon the so-called ‘Committee text’ only.

introduced by the Minister of Interior himself—catching the opposition off-guard—

changed the borders of three major municipalities, Cankaya, Yenimahalle, Etimesgut in Ankara, affecting hundreds of thousands of inhabitants while they were asleep. See; The Committee for Internal Affairs Report, 31 October 2012, pp. 155-184. 16 February 2013.

http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/sirasayi/donem24/yil01/ss338.pdf; and TGNA Minutes, 7 November 2012, Twelfth Session. 16 February 2013.

http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem24/yil3/ham/b01701h.htm.

194 There are many opportunities to introduce amendments, even after the Plenary debate has already started. It is even possible to introduce an amendment on a particular article immediately before the debate on this article starts. See, Rules of Procedure, Art 87.

Rights of the political parties to exercise effective oversight without having to secure the prior agreement of the Speaker or the Bureau, in other words the Government, in practice, do not exist—turning ‘oversight’ into a kind of potestative right.¹⁹⁵. Once a text is legislated, the implementation of it by the executive is discretionary. There is very little opportunity and mechanisms¹⁹⁶ by which the Parliament can scrutinize the measures taken by the Government, in a systematic and effective way.