YASAMA DERNEĞİ

We organized a workshop for legal advisors and experts of Grand National Assembly of Turkey and Ministry of Justice to discuss the problems of legislative process and to increase the cooperation. These kinds of programs increase the cooperation among the bureaucrats who take part in the legislative process and positively affect the law making process. Turkish Association of Legislation supports these kind of joint meetings.

Turkish Association of Legislation organised a panel with Ankara Children Rights Platform about the campaign to stop violence against children. The panel was held in Turkish Grand National Assembly. Mr. Köksal Toptan, (Speaker of Turkish Parliament) and Mr. Cevdet Erdöl (Chairman of Health Committee) also participated the panel and made speeches.

The aim of the seminar is to discuss the civil society participation to the legislative process, including the problems they faced. Opening speeches are made by Dr. İrfan Neziroğlu (Chairman of Turkish Association of Legislation), Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu (Chairman of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey), Özdemir Özok (Chairman of Turkish Bar Association) and Köksal Toptan (Speaker of Turkish Parliament).
The first session of the seminar is chaired by Prof. Dr. Zühtü Arslan. Dr. Birol Akgün from Selçuk University made a speech about the theoretical background of civil society participation. The second presentation is made by Davut Karataş, DG of Laws and Resolutions in the Prime Ministry, on the CSOs participation during the preparation of government bills. Dr. İrfan Neziroğlu, Chairman of Turkish Association of Legislation, talked about the case studies in different parliaments with regard to the civil society participation. Finally Dr. Fahri Bakırcı made his presentation on civil society participation in Turkish Parliament.
The second session is reserved for the representatives of civil society organizations. Representatives from more than 80 different CSOs participated the seminar. All representatives are given floor to explain their opinions on this subject. They also talked about the difficulties they faced during the participation in parliament.
This is the first seminar in Turkish parliament, attended by so many CSOs representatives. We hope it will positively affect the civil society participation in Turkish Parliament.

The seminar is organized with the Association of Transplantation Coordinators in Turkish Grand National Assembly on November 9, 2009. The chairman of Health Committee of Turkish Parliament also participated the seminar and made a speech. Other speakers talked about the legislative problems about transplantation.

Turkish Association of Legislation organizes legislative training programs for the directors and legislative experts of other parliaments. The program includes visits and presentations. It starts with the administrative structure of parliament. The following presentations are about legislative process (committees, plenary) and parliamentary oversight mechanisms. The participants also visit the main directorates of Turkish Parliament like directorates of Research, Library, Minutes, Foreign Relations, and Archives etc. The programs are supported by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency.
We organized programs for the parliamentary directors and experts from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Syria, Bahrain, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia.
As the members of Turkish Association of Legislation, we are very much interested in the comparative legislative studies and cooperation with other parliaments. Therefore we are ready for cooperation with the experts of other parliaments.

Turkish Association of Legislation supports and organizes internship programs in Turkish Parliament for the social science students. We organized such an internship program in June 2006 for the students of law, economics, administrative science and political science from different Turkish universities. It lasted two weeks. During the program, the participants visited different sections of parliament and they learned about the law making process and oversight mechanisms.

The seminar on the problems of Turkish Constitutional Justice System was held on January 2, 2006 in Turkish Grand National Assembly. Dr. Hikmet TULEN, Rapporteur of the Turkish Constitutional Court, made a presentation.