Public participation in local governments and elective determination of the city council's committees and organs

This thesis aims to explain the role and importance of the city council as a civil assembly and the local government as an important tool in politics at direct participation of public in today's local government structure. While doing this explanation, city councils and local governments are seen as one of the substantial tools of republican regime and as an important application of democracy which is coming from Ancient Greece to today's world. Firstly, the historical period of the progress of democracy -as a concept- should be explained and Turkey's first local government experiences should be analysed. Our first local government experience Sixth Borough and the Tanzimat Reform Era as a reason of this first local government experience should be analysed. Furthermore, efforts of political actors in Tanzimat Era to create a democratic and participatory local government is supposed to be analyzed. These efforts constitutes mainstay of reforms in local governments with republican regime. It cannot be possible to analyze local governments without analyzing Turkey's first municipal law which is dated in 1930, this first municipal law gave women the right to vote and to stand for election, and the municipal law which is numbered 5393, in accordance with the law 5393 Turkey meet the concept of "metropolitan municipality", this metropolitan municipality term comes as natural result of increasing population and industrial development. In other words, these laws should be analyzed to understand and define the breaking points of local government in Turkey. Fikri Sönmez, who served as the independent mayor of Fatsa district of Ordu, widely known as Terzi Fikri (Fikri the Tailor), make Turkey to face an revolutionary experience on local government. He does not only make citizens to participate in local government, he also make them the primary element of local government. His political and social struggle and civil assemblies which enlighten today's democracy make contribution to today's democratic local governments. People who follow Fikri Sönmez's local government practices were restrained by state authorities and Terzi Fikret was arrested and put into prison by military operation and died in prison, it is another subject to be discussed. It is observed that today's city councils are cannot be compared with Fikri Sönmez's public assemblies and today's city councils lack of legislative regulations and they differs in application one to another. This observation is made after Turkey's ratification of the European Charter of Local Self-Government is analyzed and the meetings with municipal officers and city council administrators are completed and different city council studies are examined. A model is projected which makes city councils as a formal organ of municipalities and make citizens to be involved in the decision-making processes of city councils. This city council model's rules and procedures is explained from the lowest unit to the top one, and this model constitutes the main subject of this thesis.