(TBMM) - Discussions on the "Proposal Law on Amending Certain Laws for the Effective and Efficient Functioning of the Judiciary", known to the public as the "12th Judicial Package", started at the General Assembly of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. While the Yeni Yol Group, MHP and DEM Party MPs, who spoke on the entire proposal, argued that the proposal did not solve structural problems, MHP reiterated its call for a new constitution, stating that the regulation would increase the effectiveness of the judiciary.
The General Assembly of the Turkish Grand National Assembly convened under the chairmanship of Deputy Speaker Pervin Buldan. At the General Assembly, discussions began on the "Proposal Law on Amendments to Certain Laws for the Effective and Efficient Functioning of the Judiciary", publicly known as the "12th Judicial Package".
Ankara Deputy İdris Şahin, who spoke on behalf of the Yeni Yol Group on the entire proposal, argued that the regulation did not qualify as a reform.
Şahin said, "While the society is experiencing a severe justice crisis, you are only concerned with managing the calendar. A significant part of this proposal is not a result of a political will for reform, but the annulment decisions made by the Constitutional Court. There is no planned legislative activity. There is a rush to fill the legal gaps arising from the articles annulled by the Constitutional Court at the last minute. Therefore, calling this proposal 'reform' is incompatible with legal reality. This is a delayed procedural regulation that had to be made."
Şahin, who also criticized the law-making method, said, "You foresee changes in 13 different laws, but unfortunately we do not have a single impact analysis report in front of us. This disorganization, which renders the commission dysfunctional and tries to pass the articles in a hurry, does not ensure efficiency in the judiciary; on the contrary, it leads to new uncertainties. A qualified legislative activity cannot be carried out by compressing so many regulations that are not directly related to each other into a single proposal of 30 articles."
Claiming that some articles of the proposal limit the freedom to seek rights, Şahin especially criticized the regulations regarding deportation decisions. Şahin said, "Leaving a person's life to the decision of a single judge without any superior court supervision leads to irreversible humanitarian disasters. This is not a workload issue; it is directly a matter of right to life and conscience, because justice is too vital to be sacrificed for workload calculations."
MHP Sakarya Deputy Levent Bülbül stated that the proposal would increase the effectiveness of the judiciary and called for a new constitution. Bülbül said, "The bill under discussion is a regulation that will increase the nation's trust in the state by increasing the speed and predictability of the judiciary. However, it should be known that every improvement at the level of the law is limited to the bearing of the constitutional basis on which it is built. The tutelage spirit that the 1982 Constitution inherited from the coup period still constitutes an obstacle to the full integration of judicial institutions with the nation."
Explaining MHP's approach to the new constitution, Bülbül said, "We see it as our primary goal to make a democratic, inclusive and participatory new constitution that will highlight rights and freedoms. We also consider it necessary to radically reform the status, establishment and jurisdiction principles and membership structure of the Constitutional Court. We believe that the remnants of the coup will be completely cleared with a new national and inclusive democratic constitution. Preparing a new constitution through reconciliation has now become a national duty."
DEM Party Şanlıurfa Deputy Dilan Kunt Ayan criticized the proposal by touching on the independence of the judiciary and human rights in her speech.
Referring to the article of former European Court of Human Rights Judge Rıza Türmen, Ayan says, "'I felt ashamed while reading the EU report. I felt ashamed for living in the same country as those who brought Türkiye to this point. I felt ashamed for the people who have been deprived of their freedom for years by judicial decisions whose unlawfulness was determined by the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court," and asks: 'How did we get to this point?' "We are asking this question to the General Assembly," he said.
Referring to the European Parliament's Turkey report, Ayan said, "The report states that 'Judicial independence has reached an alarming level in Türkiye', 'Criminal legislation and the Anti-Terrorism Law have become a tool for designing the opposition', 'Trustee appointments are the greatest harm to local democracy'. I am not saying these as an opposition MP; these are included in the European Parliament report."
Arguing that the proposal does not meet expectations, Ayan said, "There is no justice in the twelfth judicial package, there is no equality in the twelfth judicial package, there is no law in the twelfth judicial package. The people of this country want justice in punishment and equality in execution. They want the violations of rights in prisons to end. They want regulations regarding administrative and observation boards. But we see that there is nothing that meets these expectations in the twelfth judicial package."
Ayan also criticized the regulations regarding attorney fees and hearing periods and argued that the proposal did not provide a solution to the fundamental problems of the judiciary.
After the completion of the negotiations on the entire proposal, negotiations began on the first part of the bill, covering articles 1 to 15.
Speaking on behalf of the IYI Party Group on the first part, IYI Party Spokesperson Buğra Kavuncu stated that the judicial packages enacted so far do not solve the fundamental problems in the justice system. "When you look at the judicial packages brought to the Parliament since 2019 in our country - we are talking about the twelfth today - you think that the government is aware of the importance of justice and attaches great importance to it. Of course, there is something wrong here. As the package is released, trust in justice is lost, the justice mechanism is even more disabled. If today we pass the twelfth judicial package," he said. "If we were talking about the twelfth economic package or the twelfth education package instead, the confidence in the economy and education would probably increase. Unfortunately, this does not happen in justice because we do not talk about any structural problems of justice in the incoming packages," he said.
Recalling the judicial reform documents and judicial packages prepared in the past years, Kavuncu said, "Despite all these packages, in which country are we talking about this judicial package? We are talking in a country where the decisions of the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights are not recognized. First of all, we are talking in a country where the Constitutional Court is wanted to be abolished. We are talking in a country where periods of detention have turned into a punishment and there are 430 thousand people in prisons with a capacity of 300 thousand."
Kavuncu argued that there were technical regulations in the bill, but they did not provide solutions to the fundamental problems, and said, "When we look at the twelfth package, of course, many needed issues have been addressed, but none of them solve the structural problems, they appear as technical issues that save the day. The prepared bill has been prepared with the understanding of 'Crush the nation so that the state can live', leaving aside the understanding of 'Keep the nation alive so that the state can live'."
Listing his criticisms on some articles of the proposal, Kavuncu argued that there is inequality between the methods of the state collecting its receivables from the citizens and the process of the citizen collecting their receivables from the state, and said, "While the state collects its receivables from the citizens immediately through e-seizure and blocking, subjecting the citizens to a bureaucratic process and waiting period in order to collect their receivables from the state is to oppress the nation. Forcing notaries to submit their labor to state institutions without compensation is to oppress the nation. It is intended to manage the social pressure regarding IBAN victims, the installment plan is ambiguous." left, 'What will happen to those who have more than one file?' "The question was also overlooked," he said.
Referring to the regulation regarding the reform laws in the proposal, Kavuncu said, "There is a provision stating that postponing the announcement of the verdict in crimes related to the existing reform laws cannot be applied. What is the purpose of this? What is the purpose here? Do you want to harm the Republic? What is your problem with these republican reforms? Why was such an article needed? If anyone understands this, please come forward."
Continuing his criticism on detention practices and independence of the judiciary, Kavuncu said, "The objection period against the defendant increases from one month to three months. You cannot try to solve the institutional capacity problem by crushing the citizens. There is not a single article in this bill to solve any structural problem. We say 'trial without detention is essential', we say 'detention is an exception', but people have been detained in Silivri for sixteen months. What about the non-neutral structure of the HSK, which will be the guarantee of the independence of the judiciary? Impartiality and independence of the judiciary." "Have we seen anything to the effect? There is no such thing either," he said.
Recalling the Ergenekon, Balyoz and Decree Law processes, Kavuncu said, "We have all experienced the disasters caused by the judiciary that lost its impartiality. We have all seen those who lost their lives in Ergenekon and Balyoz. We are talking about the twelfth judicial package in a country where the honorable soldiers of this country were imprisoned due to conspiracies based on false evidence. We are talking about the twelfth judicial package in a country where tens of thousands of people were victimized and excluded from life with the Decree Law."
After the completion of the discussions on the first part, Deputy Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey Pervin Buldan closed the meeting by stating that the General Assembly will meet on Thursday, July 16, at 14.00 to discuss the legislative proposals and other works coming from the commissions, respectively, in accordance with the decision taken.