Parliamentary institutional changes

2.4 Parliamentary institutional changes

In the constitutional changes adopted in 2001 the legislation made efforts to improve the functioning of the National Assembly and speed up the approval of legislation. It shortened the periods of debating time involving the election of the National Assembly President and the majority required for certain decisions like decisions on Parliamentary Bills, the approval of the budget etc. (Günuğur 2005: 186).

In 2003 Parliament adopted a constitutional change concerning the right to be elected, narrowing the scope of the ban on participation in elections to involvement in acts of terrorism (Turkey progress report 2003: 16).

An important step was establishing of Parliamentary Committee for EU integration, called the EU Harmonization Commission in 2003. This Commission is responsible for following developments related to Turkey’s pre-accession process, and for reviewing draft laws to check compliance with the acquis.

The Assembly is a member of various international organizations. Especially since 1983, the dimensions and the scope of the foreign relations of the Assembly have increased. The members of parliament are in a continuous and intensive relationship with the international organizations, the inter-parliamentary visits and the inter-parliamentary friendship groups that are reciprocally established, and with the parliaments and parliamentarians of other foreign countries. The international organizations of which Turkey is a member and is represented by members of parliament are for example The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, The North Atlantic Assembly, The Turkey - European Community Joint Parliamentary Committee (About the TGNA).

2.5 National Security Council

The Constitutional article concerning the council was amended following the next coup, in 1971, in a way which enhanced the status of its military members and strengthening the council’s powers by stating that the council ‘recommends’ the required basic views. After 1980 coup, the 1982 Constitution further enhanced the constitutional status of the NSC. The civilian members were explicitly enumerated rather than leaving their determination to the law (Özbudun 2000: 107-108). According to the new formulation, the council was composed of the Prime Minister, Chief of the General Staff, Deputy Prime Ministers, Ministers of Justice, National Defence, Internal Affairs and Foreign Affairs, Commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Forces and General Commander of the Gendarmerie, under the chairmanship of the President of the Republic (Historical background of the NSC).

Another extension of the council’s functions was brought by the Law on the National Security Council, also adopted by the ruling military council. It defines national security as the protection of the constitutional order of the state, its national existence, and its integrity, of all of its interests in the international field, including political, social, cultural, and economic interests, and of interests derived from international treaties against all external and internal threats (Özbudun 2000: 108-109).

Further amendments to the Constitution article and the Law on the National Security Council were adopted in 2001, respectively in 2003. The NSC, under the chairmanship of the President, consists of Prime Minister, Chief of General Staff, Minister of Defense, Minister of Interior, Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Commanders of Land, Naval and Air Forces and the General Commander of the Gendarmerie. The duties of the NSC are to submit its views to the Council of Ministers, on the issues of the advisory decisions pertaining to the formulation, establishment and implementation of the national security policy and ensuring the necessary coordination. Decisions of the National Security Council, pertaining to the necessary measures that have to be taken in order to preserve the existence and independence of the State, the integrity and indivisibility of the country and the peace and the security of society, are evaluated by the Council of Ministers.

According to the amended law, the National Security Council shall take advisory decisions on issues pertaining to the formulation, establishment and implementation of the national security policy of the State, and shall provide its views with a view to ensuring the necessary coordination; it shall submit these advisory decisions and views to the Council of Ministers, and fulfill duties given by laws. The Prime Minister may entrust a Deputy Prime Minister with responsibility of submitting to the Council of Ministers the advisory decisions and views of the National Security Council to be evaluated, as well as coordinating and following up the implementation of these advisory decisions should they be approved by the Council of Ministers (Law of the NSC).

As we can observe, the NSC went through a significant change in the 2001 reform. According to the original text of the Article, the NSC was composed of five military members and four civilian in addition to the President of the Republic who may come from either a civilian or a military background (Yazıcı 2004: 98; Günuğur 2005: 186). Essential fact is that the decisions of the Council which concern the independence of the state, the indivisibility of the state with its territory and the nation, and the peace and security of the society have to be taken as orders, not recommendations by the Council of Ministers (Yazıcı 2004; Hale 2003: 120).

The new regulations from 2004 abolished the far-reaching executive power of the Secretariat of the National Security Council to follow up, on behalf of the President and the Prime Minister, any recommendation made by this body.

Beside this, the office of the Secretariat General of the NSC is transformed into a body serving the purely consultative function of the NSC and its role is just to define the agenda. The secretariat has been transformed in a way that it is no longer able to conduct national security investigations on its own initiative. Nor does it directly manage the special funds allocated to it anymore, which are now under the exclusive control of the Prime Minister (Aydın, Keyman 2004: 19). Several other measures have been adopted enhancing the transparency of military and defence expenditure, as regards ensuring control by the civilian authorities over military expenditure (Turkey progress report 2004: 22; Günuğur 2005: 186).

In the original text in the Constitution it was stated that the acts of the NSC shall not be subject to the judicial review of the Constitutional Court. This was abolished, strengthening the principles of “rule of Law” and the supremacy of the Constitution.³¹

In civil-military relations generally there has been progress concerning the competence of military courts to try civilians (Turkey progress report 2006; Yazıcı 2004). However, we can still observe in the year 2007, that the armed forces continue to exercise significant political influence, meaning for example public comments on domestic and foreign policy topics, including the essential issues like Cyprus, secularism and Kurdish question, also publishing memorandum concerning secularism, or attempts to restrict academic research and public debate in Turkey (Turkey progress report 2007).

As for the year 2008, political control over the military was applied in practice in the context of military operations aimed at terrorist targets in Northern Iraq. Such operations were authorized by the parliament and decided upon by the government. However, the armed forces have continued to exercise significant political influence via formal and informal mechanisms. Senior members of the armed forces have expressed their opinion on domestic and foreign policy issues going beyond their remit, including on Cyprus, the South East, secularism, political parties and other non-military developments. No change has been made to the laws which define the role and duties of the Turkish military and grant the military wide room for maneuver by providing a broad definition of national security.³² Neither the civilian control over the Gendarmerie when engaged in law enforcement activities has been changed. This refers to the 1997 EMASYA secret protocol on security, public order and assistance units, allowing the "military operations to be carried out for internal security matters under certain conditions without a request from the civilian authorities" (Gültaşlı 2008). Parliamentary oversight of the military budget is still not very strong. The Parliamentary Planning and Budget Committee review the budget of the Ministry of National Defence, however, extra-budgetary funds are excluded from parliamentary scrutiny (Turkey progress report 2008: 10). The military expenses represented 13% of the Turkish annual budget in 2006, and 9,8% in 2007³³ therefore it constitutes a considerable part of the national budget, which is not entirely under civil control.

An interesting view on the functioning and importance of the NSC nowadays is brought by an article by Lale Sarıibrahimoğlu. One of the reforms from the years 2003-2004 involved the civilianization of the NSC, reducing, to a certain extent, the political influence of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) on all security and non-security matters. Under the 2003 law, NSC activities and decisions, providing the legal grounds for the influential role the TSK plays in political life, were reduced to the level of recommendations to the Cabinet, and a civilian was appointed as NSC secretary-general for the first time.³⁴ Five military members were to remain in the NSC, while the number of civilian members was increased to seven. The first years of the NSC under a civilian head have created excitement in Turkey and raised hopes that civilian oversight will be ensured through the NSC, too. However, over the years, as military influence in the NSC has declined, so have the functions of this security organization. “The potential that it offers to the civilian authority has not been exploited, either. The NSC is currently producing opinion papers for the Foreign Ministry and acting as if it is a think tank” one Turkish security expert states. Instead, Prime Minister and his team should give support to the NSC and exploit its potential as envisaged by laws that should coordinate all the related institutions and help the government design strategies on issues of the ever-changing security threats of the 21st century, such as climate change, energy security, projected food shortages and asymmetric threats (Sarıibrahimoğlu 2008).