Home > 5.3 Validity of the question > TÜRKIYE - Opinion on the Amendments to the Constituion Adopted by the Grand National Assembly on 21 January 2017 and to be Submitted to a National Referendum on 16 April 2017
 
 
 
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Paragraph 45
 

The United States is often cited as the example of democratic presidentialism, and has been used to support the transition to a presidential regime in Turkey. The Venice Commission has previously argued that “Each constitution is the result of balancing various powers. If a power is given to one state body, other powers need to be able to effectively control the exercise of this power. The more power an institution has, the tighter control mechanisms need to be constructed. Comparative constitutional law cannot be reduced to identifying the existence of a provision the constitution of another country to justify its democratic credentials in the Constitution of one’s own country. Each constitution is a complex array of checks and balances and each provision needs to be examined in view of its merits for the balance of powers as a whole.” There is very little resemblance between the constitutional amendments pending in Turkey and the political regime of the United States. As will be explained in more detail below, the draft Turkish constitutional amendments would confer substantially more power on the President, and include substantially fewer checks and balances between the executive, legislature, and judiciary, than the US constitutional system. Under the amended Turkish constitution, unlike under the American one, there would be no bicameralism, no federalism, no election of the Vice-president, no influence of parliament on appointments within the executive power, while the President would have the power to dissolve parliament at his or her will (though putting his or her own mandate at stake). Presidential elections would be held jointly with parliamentary elections every five years, while in the US the voters have the possibility to vote in mid-term elections every two years. There would not even be a strong, independent judiciary. It should be stressed in this respect that the lack of well rooted principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers has led to authoritarian rule in some US-inspired presidential regimes in South America, Asia or Africa.