The Impact of the 2017 Constitutional Amendments on the Protection of Secularism

This chapter will examine the constitutional amendments adopted on 16 April 2017 that transformed Turkey’s political system from a parliamentary regime to a presidential one. First, it will study how the amendments redrafted the relationship between the executive and legislative and whether this reconfiguration involves sufficient guarantees important for the protection of secularism. It will then make recommendations on how the presidential appointment powers should be designed in a way that ensures effective checks and balances which are the sine qua non for protecting the secular structure of the state.