MÜSİAD makes draft public

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

MÜSİAD head Ömer Cihad Vardan announces porposals for draft charter. DAILY NEWS photo, Emrah GÜREL

A group of businessmen has said a new constitution should allow private institutions to educate using native languages.

According to a draft charter prepared by the Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (MÜSİAD), the country’s official language should remain Turkish, but private schools should be given the right to educate in “a certain religion or language.”

“The way such a right will be practiced should be determined by the legislation,” Ömer Cihad Vardan, head of MÜSİAD, said yesterday at a meeting in Istanbul where he made the association’s charter draft public.

The draft also proposed that compulsory religious courses should be kept in the new constitution in addition to selective courses to be provided on families’ demand.
“It is decided that clothes or religious symbols cannot be a reason for restraint of the right to education,” Vardan said.

Introduced by Vardan as simple and comprehensible, the charter draft proposed by MÜSİAD contained 78 items. Those items included the removal of military judiciary.

The draft proposed that the National Security Board (MGK) and Supreme Military Council (YAŞ) should be written off the list of constitutional organizations. The right to declare a state of emergency would be kept in the government, while the Chief of General Staff would be affiliated with the defense ministry instead of the prime ministry.

“Our draft may not be the perfect constitution, however it is an important and necessary step for civil participation,” he said.