sPAT February 2017 Agenda: ‘Constitutional Reform -1-’

The small Provincial Assemblies of Turkey is preparing to provide a platform for healthy discussions on these 18 articles by handling each of them one by one in the span of two meetings. The meetings will handle the “executive” amendments in February; “legislative and judicial” amendments in March. The general agenda of the February meetings is therefore “The Constitutional Reform -1-.”

The constitutional amendment bill has passed the GNAT General Assembly following ‘heavy’ debates, with votes from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Now the amendment awaits the approval of the President.

The Higher Electoral Council is expected to announce the referendum date within the next week. The referendum will most probably be held in April.

We have the opportunity to hold two or three meetings before the referendum.

The constitutional amendment pack consists of 18 articles.

The small Provincial Assemblies of Turkey is preparing to provide a platform for healthy discussions on these 18 articles by handling each of them one by one in the span of two meetings. The meetings will handle the “executive” amendments in February; “legislative and judicial” amendments in March. The general agenda of the February meetings is therefore “The Constitutional Reform -1-.”

The time and location of the meetings are as indicated below:

Information on the meetings:

In case there is more than one person representing the same organization, only one of those representatives can take the floor at once. The time periods indicated below may be increased or decreased as long as all participants agree on the change and the flow of the meeting is not disrupted.

In our meetings, special guests speak about the general agenda for 10 minutes following the introduction video presented at the beginning of each meeting. After the special guests, the turn of speech is given first to Non-Governmental Organizations for 5 minutes each, then to Political representatives for 5 minutes each. Once the first round is completed, either the second round, or a question-answer session beings; according to the number of attendance and to the common preferences of the participants. In the Q/A session, political party representatives have 2 minutes to answer the questions asked by the civil society in 15 seconds. In this session, the special guests may be asked questions as well. The same format is applied for the local agenda as well, and the meeting concludes.