THE CONSTITUTIONS OF TURKEY IN
REPUBLIC ERA
MEHMET ÖMER KESİLMİŞ
TEACHER: TUĞBA BOZKURT ŞEKER
“Which one is better?” this is one of the most
important questions about types of organization of
government after human being started to live
together. Physical power, authority were key
elements for control and manage the others at the
beginning, yet time made things complicated and
harder. Human being tried many different ways,
experienced lots of events, and after bloody
centuries decided to create some rules that
superior than every one and every thing. We called
constitution to that, today. I am going to mention
about our constitutional adventures, ‘constitutional
movements in Republican era’.
Our travel of constitution started at Ottoman
Empire period in modern sense. The constitution of
1921 was between republic and empire times, at
War of Independence period. We could add this
constitution to republic era, because an assembly,
not a king, established it. It is not a usual type of
constitution. According to hierarchy of norms,
constitutions are made and changed with different
methods than basic laws, yet this constitution
established like a code. Constitutions exist for
determine organization of government and
guarantee the rights of human but constitution of
1921 has 23 articles and only 10 of them were
about organization of government, human rights
didn’t even take part there.
In 1923 republic was established, because of
the changes of type of government a new
constitution was required. The National Grand
Assembly abolished 1876 and 1921 constitutions
and created this constitution. It has an article
about supremacy of constitution; this is an
important difference between previous
constitutions and this one. The constitution of
1924 showed the religion, the language and the
capital city of country. The religion part was
abolished in 1928 and than in 1937 secularism and
other six main principles of Republican People
Party took part in constitution.
At first election that includes multiple parties
and fair, Democrat Party had a victory. After ten
years, military coup was made. Republic of
Turkey’s Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, and two
of his ministers Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Hasan
Polatkan were executed. Military government
made a new constitution in 1961. According to
this, Grand National Assembly divided two parts as
National assembly and Republican Senate.
President of Republic could be chosen for seven
years and only for one time. One of the most
important article was about constitutional court,
first time in our republic history a court that
supervise the laws whether suitable with
constitution or not, was established.
At 12 September 1980 military took over
government again. This military coup was little bit
different than 1960; this time full general, chief of
army, chief of air forces, and chief of naval forces
were together. With this constitution the state
supervisory council and high education board were
founded. The constitution of 1982 has casuistic
especialities, it tries to solve many subjects and
has a lot of articles about many different topics.
The constitution of 1982 enforced executive
power; it gives more authority to president of
republic. Republican Senate was abolished with
this constitution and Grand National Assembly
became single assembly again.
Resource
Prof. Dr. Kemal Gözler Turkish Constitutional Law