April 17th, 2006

Ağah KAFKAS
Chairman of the Democracy Committee
Çorum Parliamentarian of Justice and Development Party

Dear Chairman,

Upon your request, we are sending you TUMIKOM's opinions about the “Voters – Parliamentarians Relation, The Workings of Assembly Commissions and The Functions of Assembly Personnel” of which you mentioned in the invitation letter dated April 06th, 2006 and then, you repeated in the meeting in Turkish Great National Assembly (T.G.N.A.) in April 13th, 2006.

Our opinions, which were discussed and then built in the scope of voter's right perspective in the 7th Turkey Summit of TUMIKOM held in April 25th – 26th, 2006, are collected under five main topics and added to this letter. In these opinions, it is called attention to the subjects that are primary for increasing respect and trust of public towards T.G.N.A. and parliamentarians. In addition, these opinions concern more effective workings of parliamentarians and the subjects that support solutions for our democracy.

TUMIKOM is ready to work collectively with the Democracy Committee and also each parliamentarian separately about strengthened and developing our democracy, as like the subjects “Voters – Parliamentarians Relation, The Workings of Assembly Commissions and The Function of Assembly Personnel”.

We believe that the collective works of T.G.N.A. Democracy Committee and TUMIKOM will construct, develop and stable the voter-parliamentarian relationship, which has not been provided yet.

We would like to thank you and the other members of the T.G.N.A. Democracy Committee for your attention to the opinions of generally whole NGO's and specifically TUMIKOM.

Your Sincerely,

Mustafa DURNA
General Coordinator of TUMIKOM

ATTACHMENT- Voter-Parliamentarian Relations

I- STRENGTHENING AND DEVELOPING TRUST IN THE SOCIETY

In order to democratised our country and provide more trust to democracy;

•T.G.N.A. have to make judicial and legal regulations to preserve its judicial and legal status against the anti-democratic attempts,

•Legal arrangements should be made in order to develop sensibility of clarity in the society and responsibility to law, and to do this, the 15th article of the constitution that encourages corruption and irregularity should be abolished at the very beginning.

•“Political Parties Act” and “Election System” have to be changed eligible to the context of international law orders in order to make the system more democratic;

•Legal arrangements have to be done for abolishing the election threshold in order to establish the complete and continuous expression of voter's will in the parliament;

•The T.G.N.A. Democracy Committee have to be transformed into “Commission”;

•“Political Ethics Law” have to be made;

•The T.G.N.A. Political Ethics Commission have to be established,

II- POLITICAL ETHICS

To establish political ethics in the parliament there should be made;

•Legal arrangements about the candidates of parliament, which lay down conditions such as not to be punished from murder, infamous crime, fraudulent act, bribery and corruption,

•Legal arrangements which make the candidates oblige to declare their assets and the resources of these assets,

•Legal arrangements which make the candidates oblige to declare election budget and its resources, and in addition legal arrangements which limit the election grants,

•Legal arrangements, which block the parties to collect money on the behalf of anything from their candidates or candidate for to be a candidate

•Legal arrangements, which make the parliamentarians assign the management of their benefit oriented private works to a trustee and also prevent the parliamentarians deal with any other benefit oriented works during their parliamentary process,

•Legal arrangements, which avoid the parliamentarians make salary increase or treatment for themselves immediately in the period they elected, and also formulate the parliamentarians’ salaries according to the rate of increase of the civil servants,

•Abolishment of parliamentary immunity except the bench immunity.

III- INCREASING THE EFFICIENY AND CONTROL

In order to increase the efficiency in the assembly and increase the control over the parliamentarians;

•The parliamentarians should be educated by experts before swearing, in order to faster and facilitate the parliamentary works,

•The number of the experts/advisors for each parliamentarian should be increased and until providing this, the commissions should be reinforced with experts,

•The absenteeism’s of the parliamentarians to T.G.N.A. sessions and commissions, the official reports of T.G.N.A. sessions and the vote colours of the parliamentarians should be published in the web site of the assembly in fallowing 24 hours for providing the control of the electors over the elected,

•Number of experts working in the commissions should be increased,

•The official reports of the commissions, commissions' decisions and the vote colours given in the commissions should be recorded digitally and provide the control of the electors over the elected by publishing the records in the web site of the assembly in the fallowing 24 hours,

•The periodical filing works of whole T.G.N.A. activities should be digitally published.

IV- VOTER – PARLIAMENTARIAN COMMUNICATION

•“Voter Liaison Offices” should be opened by parliamentarians in their electoral district;

•The offices to be established should not address particularly the party's voter base but the entire electoral district's voter;

•The establishment of the “Voter Liaison Offices” should be announced by the parliamentarian and the voters of the electoral district should be informed about the offices and their processes;

•Voter of the electoral district could forward their demands and complaints directly and without censor to the parliamentarian;

•The highlighted demands of the voters declared in the “Voter Liaison Offices” should be noticed to the parliamentarian at the end of each month;

•The parliamentarians should inform the drawers of the voter's demands with a written document at the end of each months;

•Information and evaluation meetings should be organized by the parliamentarians about the results of the voters demands at the latest in every three months;

•Parliamentarian should organize an evaluation meeting with voters, collect information about the problems and priorities of the district from the voters and the NGOs working in the electoral district and announce the result of the meetings, the demands of the voters and the promises given by the parliamentarian with a written document;

•The results and the decisions taken with the voters should be the working scheme of the parliamentarian in the next legislation year;

•A general voter meeting should be organized by parliamentarian at the end of the each legislation year, to which the NGOs working in the district also invited; and in this meeting parliamentarian should inform the voters about the workings of the legislation year and the promises given by the parliamentarian;

•Parliamentarian should organize a meeting, which shows the goodwill and could be a starting point in the communication of voter and parliamentarian; and as a first job of this meeting, the parliamentarian should inform the voters of the district about the results of the promises given by him/her.

V- ASSEMBLY PERSONNEL

In order to functionalise the assembly personnel, it is necessity

•To educate the assembly personnel in order to increase the performance and computer literacy

•To rebuilding the assembly's substructure eligible to computer and digital spaces (In this process, Law and Decision Department should be primary)