Control authorities of metropolitan municipalities on the metropolitan district municipalities

The most important development in the field of local governance in the post-1980 period in Turkey was the implementation of two-tier metropolitan governments, which started with the enactment of the Metropolitan Municipality Law No. 3030 in 1984. Law No. 5216, which was enacted 20 years after the first law, and Law No. 6360, which was adopted in 2012, also brought about radical changes in metropolitan organization. Law No. 6360 expanded the authority and responsibility areas of metropolitan municipalities to provide services on the territorial boundary of the province and district municipalities to provide services on the territorial boundary of the district, which led to both academic and political arguments. Amendments to Law No. 5216 and the reorganized organizational structure, service and resource sharing, the central government's localization policies, the centralization of metropolitan municipalities, and the positioning of the central government's tutelage control in the relationship between metropolitan municipalities and district municipalities are the main topics of these arguments. The 2017 constitutional amendment and the Presidential Government System, which started to be implemented after the 2018 general elections, have led to some changes in the autonomy and tutelage of local governments. Legal arrangements have generally been made within the framework of principles such as subsidiarity, effectiveness and efficiency. This study aims to examine the control authority of the upper level over the lower level, which is a consequence of the two-tier metropolitan administration in metropolitan municipality administration in Turkey, within the scope of the centralist approach of the metropolitan municipality, the autonomy of district municipalities and local administrative tutelage debates. Within the framework of the legislation concerning metropolitan municipalities, the articles of law that are subject to the tutelage debate are evaluated with specific examples differentiated as decision and implementation. In particular, the implementation of district coordinatorships and district service units in the services to be provided by metropolitan municipalities in district municipalities due to area management, and the coordination of the services that district municipalities can provide by the center are evaluated as practices that limit the autonomy of district municipalities, while the supervision of the affiliated institutions of metropolitan municipalities, the collection of some revenues at the center, and the implementation of practices that are concepts of tutelage control such as approval as is, approval with amendment, and request for reconsideration in the law in the context of metropolitan district municipalities are evaluated within the scope of the "local tutelage" debate. Keywords: Metropolitan municipal administration, administrative tutelage, local autonomy, local tutelage.