No Constitution Without Us Platform had a meeting with The Constitutional Reconciliation Commission

The representatives of the Civil Society Development Centre and No Constitution Without Us Platform had a meeting with the Constitutional Reconciliation Commission.

Taking form as a result of the meetings of No Constitution Without Us organized by the Civil Society Development Centre and summarizing the local people- based non-governmental organizations’ demands on freedom of association and recommendations for the constitution drafting, the document was presented to the members of the commission.

Kamuran Parıltı (Buca Association for Disabled People), Zafer Kıra. (Non- Governmental Organization in Criminal Execution System), Mehmet Hanifi Kılınç (Izmir Branch of Mazlum- Der- the Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People) from No Constitution Without Us Platform and Levent Korkut and Özgün Emre Sorkun (the Civil Society Development Centre) on behalf of the Civil Society Development Centre participated in the meeting with the Constitutional Reconciliation Commission.

Giving a presentation on behalf of the Platform, Levent Korkut drew attention of the commission members to the proposals paving the way for reinforcement of NGO organizations and participation of decisionmaking mechanisms in consideration of participatory democracy, pluralism, multiculturalism, sovereignty, reinforcement of local administrations and participation of NGOs in decisionmaking mechanisms. Pursuant to the presentation, NGO representatives explained to the commission members the effects of a constitution restricting participation opportunities on daily life and organization practices.

The report submitted to the Constitutional Reconciliation Commission includes constitutional proposals regarding freedom of association. The report mentions the requirement to deal with the articles in the constitution concerning freedom of association and emphasizes its importance in terms of democratization of Turkey
within the period of the constitution arrangements. The report submitted to the Commission consists of three sections. Pursuant to the introduction part, it is stated how the issue of association is addressed in the European Convention on Human Rights and the Constitution of 1982 and the proposals as regards provisions on freedom of association in the new constitution are included in the last section. It Democratic experiences in different countries are said to point out that non-governmental organizations are effective in pluralist, participatory and decentralize democracies at the most and thus, decentralization, pluralism and participations should be adopted as a principle.