The Committees in the Turkish Parliament: Existing Problems and Solutions after 2017 Constitutional Reform

Abstract

Turkish Parliament, namely Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) works for a very long time in each legislative period. Despite this long and exhausting work performance, the need for the new laws has increased in time. An important reason for this low degree of productivity is the committee stage that is an important part of legislative process in GNAT. First of all I will try to explain the problematic aspects in the committees that are an important reason of unproductive legislative process in GNAT. Secondly Turkey has experienced a major Constitutional reform recently, in 2017. The existing parliamentary system was replaced by Turkish Type Presidential system by the constitutional amendments of 2017. These amendments definitely will effect working procedure of GNAT. I will concentrate on these amendments and the probable effects of them on the committees. Finally I will try to give some recommendation that may be useful in case of any amendment in Rules of Procedure (İçtüzük) of GNAT.