Responding to a question from Today’s Zaman at a press briefing on Monday morning, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said the Council of Europe welcomes the move by the Turkish government to change the Constitution while reiterating an earlier call for judicial reform.
“I call on the Turkish Parliament to urgently adopt judicial reform because Turkey is second in terms of the number of cases filed at the European Court of Human Rights, a judicial organ of the Council of Europe,” he said, stressing that there is an absolute need for judicial reform in Turkey. He also stressed that the current Constitution in Turkey is a military creation and that Turkey ought to get a civilian and democratic constitution. The Turkish Constitution was adopted in 1982 in the wake of a military coup and is subject to criticism from many European institutions including the EU and the Council of Europe.
“It [the military constitution] is the main obstacle before reforms in Turkey,” he said, urging the Turkish government to officially apply to the Venice Commission for an opinion on the constitutional amendments.
Çavuşoğlu is a Turkish deputy from Antalya, and he was not able to attend the voting in the Turkish Parliament because of PACE proceedings in Strasbourg. “I regret that I cannot participate in voting on the reform package,” he said.
As regards to the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, Çavuşoğlu said PACE is determined to solve frozen conflicts in the region, noting that he will meet with delegations from both Azerbaijan and Armenia. “The PACE subcommittee will discuss the issue, and I will chair it,” he said. As for the parliamentary elections scheduled for November in Azerbaijan, he expressed hope that they will be even more democratic than the previous elections.
