Powers of the president on the legislature in Comparative Law

The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the concept of presidency in Turkey within the scope of the government systems and the Turkish Constitution of 1982. In the study, major types of governmental systems and within this context, the presidency institution have been reviewed in general. In the last chapter, the election process and the functions and powers of the president in Turkey and the consistency of these functions and powers with the ones foreseen in classical parliamentary systems have been discussed in the light of the recent constitutional developments in Turkey. In this dissertation, the impact of Turkey's 2007 constitutional amendment on the Turkish governmental system and the discussions on this issue have been analyzed. In this study, it is underlined that the Turkish president's powers endowed by the Turkish Constitution of 1982 are not consistent with the powers of presidents foreseen in the classical parliamentary systems since the Turkish president has been provided with excessive executive powers rather than the symbolic ones. The crucial constitutional amendment which was accepted through a nationwide referendum on 21 October 2007 introduced the principle of popular election of the president. It is obvious that a president who will be elected by popular vote and has excessive executive powers is not consistent with the classical parliamentary system. In this study, the discussions on governmental systems in Turkey have been examined within the scope of the present constitutional provisions and transformation presumption of the Turkish governmental system from parliamentary to presidential or semi presidential system has been questioned. Keywords: presidential system, parliamentary, parliamentary, semi-presidential system, presidency, presidential elections.