The March amendments to the Law on the Basic Provisions on Elections and Voter Registers changed the composition and leadership of the BBCs. Under the previous legislation, presidents of BBCs were drawn by lot among candidates proposed by the political parties. Article 22 of the amended law abolished the appointment of political party nominees, and the president of the BBC is instead a civil servant in the district chosen by the president of the relevant District Electoral Board (DEB). Moreover, the amendments abolished the appointment of one member from the aldermen council of the village or the district, and replaced this member with a civil servant chosen by the president of the DEB (Article 23). As per the previous legislation, the remaining five members of the BBCs are appointed by the five parties with the greatest number of votes in the last general parliamentary elections in the district. As a result of the amendments, the president and a total of two out of seven members of the BBCs are civil servants, who are fundamentally subject to the authority of the executive branch of power and are thereby, on the basis of the amended Article 104 of the Constitution, under the authority of the President of Turkey. With this background and due to the perceived lack of independence of Turkey’s civil service from the political powers, it is hard to see how the civil servants in the BBCs can be considered impartial, as required by the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters.31 While political parties are not impartial when taken individually, objective impartiality can nonetheless be achieved by a broad and balanced composition of electoral administration bodies. Concerns with the competence of party-appointed BBC presidents, as noted by the authorities as a justification for the new composition, can be addressed by establishing minimum professional requirements. Moreover, the president of the DEB appoints “the presidents from those who do not have any obstacle”; the term “obstacle” is not defined and could lead to the exclusion from the post of president of BBCs on arbitrary grounds. Overall, the lack of criteria for appointees leaves the process vulnerable to abuse and lacking transparency. Introducing civil servants to BBCs while reducing pluralism represented by the political parties, appears problematic vis-à-vis the above-mentioned impartiality requirement and the country’s particular political reality.32 The Venice Commission and ODIHR recommend reconsidering the amendments regarding the composition and leadership of BBCs.
31 See the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters, II.3.1.a. “An impartial body must be in charge of applying electoral law”. Also, see UN Human Rights Committee’s General Comment 25 on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
32 “Where there is no longstanding tradition of administrative authorities' independence from those holding political power, independent, impartial electoral commissions must be set up at all levels, from the national level to polling station level”: Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters, II.3.1.b.
