Comenius booklet

England: Upton Hall, Birkenhead (www.uptonhallschool.co.uk) Iceland: Verzlunarskoli Islands (www.verslo.is) Ireland: St. Mary‘s College (www.stmarysarklow.ie) Romania: Colegiul Henri Coanda (http://www.colegiulcoanda.ro) Slovenia: Gimnazija Tolmin (www.gimnazija-tolmin.si) Spain: IES JosĂŠ Conde Garcia (http://edu.jccm.es/ies/joseconde) Turkey: Isparta Sehit Ali Ihsan Kalmaz Anadolu Lisesi (www.ispartasaikanadolulisesi.k12.tr)

November 2012

Content Content........................................................................................................................................2 ENGLAND.....................................................................................................................................4 Parliament...............................................................................................................................4 Powers.....................................................................................................................................4 Election systems......................................................................................................................4 Composition and Membership...............................................................................................5 Socio-Economic Composition of Parliament...........................................................................5 Gender equality in our parliament.........................................................................................6 Constitution.............................................................................................................................6 Constitution.............................................................................................................................6 IRELAND.......................................................................................................................................7 How we elect our government?.............................................................................................7 Government............................................................................................................................7 Our President .........................................................................................................................8 The role of our President........................................................................................................8 ICELAND.......................................................................................................................................9 The Icelandic Parliament and Constitution.............................................................................9 ROMANIA..................................................................................................................................10 The Parliament......................................................................................................................10 The Constitution....................................................................................................................11 SLOVENIA..................................................................................................................................13 Slovenian Parliament............................................................................................................13 National Assembly................................................................................................................13 National Council....................................................................................................................14 Election system.....................................................................................................................14 SPAIN.........................................................................................................................................15 Spanish constitutions............................................................................................................15 Page2

New constitution...................................................................................................................16 Political system......................................................................................................................17 Parliament.............................................................................................................................17 Judiciary.................................................................................................................................18 TURKEY......................................................................................................................................19 The transition to national sovereignty..................................................................................19 Founding of the Turkish grand national assembly................................................................21 Proclamation of the Republic................................................................................................21 The general principles of the Constitution...........................................................................22 The unchangeable basic provisions..................................................................................22

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ENGLAND PARLIAMENT •

The name of the British Parliament is Westminster.

•

It is bicameral and comprises two houses: the Upper chamber (appointed) The House of Lords and the lower chamber (elected) The House of Commons

•

There are devolved Parliaments in Wales; The Welsh Assembly; Northern Ireland; The Northern Ireland Assembly and Scotland; The Scottish Parliament

POWERS •

Westminster has sovereign powers but they can be overridden by the EU

•

The other devolved parliaments of the UK have different degrees of powers which have been delegated to them from Westminster by (Act of Parliament) the passing of Law

•

E.g. The Scotland Act 1998, gave powers to the Scottish Parliament which included financial freedoms

•

In British National Elections we use a plurality system of First-Past-The-Post (FPTP)

ELECTION SYSTEMS •

This means ‘winner takes all’ – like a horse race and the candidate with the most votes wins

•

We use proportional representation (PR) systems in the devolved parliaments and the London Assembly and Mayoral Elections

•

In May 2011 a referendum was held regarding a change to AV, a hybrid system (mixture of FPTP and PR) The referendum failed, so British General Elections will use a system of FPTP for the foreseeable future

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COMPOSITION AND MEMBERSHIP There are currently 646 seats in Parliament and they are comprised like this: •

326 needed to win Political Party

Seats

Change

Conservative

307

+97

Labour

258

-91

Liberal Democrat

57

-5

Democratic Unionist Party

8

-1

Scottish National Party

6

0

Others

14

0

The 2010 Election resulted in a hung Parliament, the first since 1974 and in a Coalition Government, unprecedented in British History

SOCIO-ECONOMIC COMPOSITION OF PARLIAMENT •

Age – 71% of MPs fall in the age 41-59 category with the average age being approx.

51

•

Gender - There is an imbalance. Only 1 in 5 MPs are women.

•

Occupation – Most are from a professional background, most commonly a barrister/solicitor or teacher/lecturer. Only about 6% are from manual worker backgrounds.

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•

Ethnicity - Only about 2-3% of MPs are from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared with 8% of the general population

•

Education – About three quarters have a University degree or higher.

•

The Upper chamber (House of Lords) is well known for being a white middle/upperclassed male domain but is gradually changing.

GENDER EQUALITY IN OUR PARLIAMENT •

This is improving but there is a long way to go

•

Women currently make up only 22% of MPs

•

Some political parties for example, the Labour Party have ‘all women lists’ and a target quota of 50% of women candidates(They are currently in opposition)

•

There are only currently three female cabinet ministers.

CONSTITUTION •

In Britain we have an unwritten constitution (A loose term, as it is written)

•

It is uncodified, which means that it is not written in one document

•

It has evolved over many centuries and is drawn from many different sources

•

We do not have a Bill Of Rights

•

It is easy to change but is not as well protected as the US Constitution, for example

CONSTITUTION

Sources of the Constitution famously include: Magna Carta 1215 and the Settlement Act of 1689. Other sources include European Law, such as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), British Law, such as the Humans Rights Act (HRA) and laws made in the Courts such as case law. This is when a precedent is set.

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IRELAND HOW WE ELECT OUR GOVERNMENT? Every 5 years all Irish citizens over 18 years can vote to elect 166 TDs (Teachta Dala which means a member of our parliament, called the Dail).

Our country is divided in to 43 constituencies or voting areas. Each constituency elects 3, 4 or 5 TDs, depending on the number of people who live in that voting area.

GOVERNMENT

The Dail meets in Leinster House in Dublin.

The main political parties in Ireland are Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Labour, Sinn Fein and there are also a number of independent TDs. After the election, a government is formed by the main party or by a coalition of parties so that they will have a majority when decisions are made in the Dail. They need to have at least 84 TDs to ensure a majority vote (166 seats รท 2=83+1=84 to give a majority vote). We have had coalition governments in Ireland for the last twenty years.

Our Taoiseach (Prime Minister) is Enda Kenny and he is leader of the Fine Gael

party

Fine Gael is in coalition with the Labour party.

Our Tanaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) is Eamon Gilmore who is leader of the Labour party

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OUR PRESIDENT

Irish citizens over 18 years can elect our President when elections are held every 7 years. In order to go forward for election a candidate for President must be at least 35 years old. At the end of the seven year term, the President can go forward to be elected for a second term. Our President is Mary McAleese who has been President for almost 14 years. A new president will be elected in November 2011 Our President does not take an active role in politics in Ireland.

THE ROLE OF OUR PRESIDENT •

Represents the people of Ireland on state visits to other countries

•

Welcomes heads of state of other countries to Ireland

•

Is the commander of the Defence Forces

•

Signs bills into law

•

May refer a bill presented to the Council of State if it is felt that there may be a constitutional issue in signing it in to law

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ICELAND THE ICELANDIC PARLIAMENT AND CONSTITUTION The name of situated in

the Icelandic Parliament is Alþingi and it dates back to 930. It is now the center of Reykjavík. The parliament is the supreme legislative authority and operates in one house.

There are 63 MPs in Iceland. 37 of them are males and 26 are females who all belong to one ethnic group.

Their average age is 49.2 years. The majority of the MPs have a university degree (at present 48). Most of them are lawyers and teachers. Also, in the parliament we have farmers, fishermen, artists, etc. The MPs represent five parties. Namely the Independence Party, The Left-Green Movement, Social Democratic Alliance, The Centre Liberal Party and The Citizens‘ Movement.

There is a representative system of government in Iceland which allows everyone to express their opinion by voting for the candidates standing for election. The Head of Government is the Prime Minister who holds the power while the President of Iceland is more a symbolic figure. For the past number of years, the government usually consists of a coalition of two parties who have the majority of members in Parliament. The current Prime Minister is Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the leader of The Social Democratic Alliance, and the Government consists of two parties, The Left-Green Movement and The Social Democratic Alliance.

Icelanders cast their vote to elect a new government every four years. Everyone who is over 18 has the right to vote in the General Elections. In Iceland, there is proportional representation and the country is divided into six constituencies. People vote for any of the parties in their constituency and the seats are distributed by d’Hondt method.

The Icelandic constitution safeguards the separation of power between the Legislature (Alþingi), the Executive (the Government) and the Judiciary (the courts). Our Constitution is written in one document and amendments have to be accepted by Alþingi for two consecutive terms. Our Constitution also has The Charter of Human Rights. At present, Alþingi has commissioned a group of 25 people to form a body called the Constituent Assembly to revise the Constitution.

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ROMANIA THE PARLIAMENT

of

The Parliament of Romania is in Bucharest and is made up of two chambers: the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The Senate of Romania (Romanian: Senat) is the upper house in Romania’s bicameral parliament. It has 137 seats (as of November 28, 2004), to which members are elected by direct popular vote, using mixed member proportional representation in 42 electoral districts (the 41 counties, plus the city Bucharest), to serve four-year terms.

After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the Senate was housed in The Palace of the Senate, (Romanian: Palatul Senatului), located in Revolution Square. That U-shaped structure was built from 1938 to 1941 under engineer Emil Prager's co-ordination, following the plans of architect Emil Nădejde. It housed the Council of Ministers and from 1958 to 1989 and it was the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party. During the Revolution, Romanian President Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife Elena fled by helicopter from the roof of the building. In 2005, Senators moved into the Palace of the Parliament, joining their colleagues from the Chamber of Deputies. The Palace of the Senate now houses offices of the Ministry of Administration and Interior.

The Chamber of Deputies (Romanian: Camera Deputaţilor) is the lower house in Romania's bicameral parliament. It has 315 seats, to which deputies are elected by direct popular vote on a proportional representation basis (mixed member proportional representation starting in 2008) to serve four-year terms. Additionally, the organisation of each national minority is entitled to a seat in the Chamber (under the limitation that a national minority is to be represented by one organisation only). The representation for the Chamber of Deputies is one deputy to 70000 inhabitants. One senator is elected to 160000 inhabitants. Prior to the modifications of the Constitution in 2003, the Electoral system is proportional (members are elected from all parties that passed the electoral threshold of 5% of the votes cast in the algorithm). Elections are held every four years, and are made through a proportional representation system of voting in single-member colleagues. The last election last was held on 30th November 2008.

The voting age is 18.The candidates must have attained, by election day, at least 23 years to be elected to the Chamber of Deputies or local administration council, at least 33 years to be elected to the Senate and at least 35 years to be elected President of Romania.

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In Romania, 51.3 percent of the population are women, yet their representation in parliament is only 9.7 percent. Only one woman is in the Romanian government: Elena Udrea, who heads the Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism.

Students Andronic Maricel and Cojoc Bogdan

THE CONSTITUTION The of

on 29,

Constitution of Romania is the fundamental law that establishes the structure of the government of Romania, the rights and obligations the country's citizens, and its mode of passing laws. It stands as the basis of the legitimacy of the Romanian government. The constitution was most recently revised by a national referendum October 18-19, 2003. The new constitution, which took effect October 2003, follows the structure of the Constitution of 1991, but makes significant revisions.

The first constitution of the United Principality (later Kingdom) of Romania was adopted July 1, 1866. After the extension of national territory in 1918, a new constitution was approved March 29, 1923. In the communist period, the constitution was modified in 1948, 1952, and 1965. After the Revolution of 1989, a new constitution was adopted in 1991. The revision of the 1991 Constitution was approved by the Romanian Parliament, and was adopted by a constitutional referendum held October 18-19, 2003. A total of 55.7% of eligible voters turned out, with 89.7% of those voting in favour of the changes. The new constitution took effect October 29, 2003. More than half of the articles of the constitution underwent changes, large and small. The most important changes were: national minorities have the right to use their native language in dealing with the governmental administration and the courts, private property is guaranteed by the protection of the law (previously property was only “protected”, not “guaranteed”), the mandate of the President of Romania is extended to 5 years (previously it had been 4 years), military conscription is regulated by organic law (previously it was made mandatory by the Constitution and starting 2007 it will not be mandatory), parliamentary immunity is limited, once Romania accedes to the European Union (EU) citizens of EU countries will have the right to vote and to run as candidates in local elections (if they live in the relevant locality), entry into the European Union and NATO will not require a further referendum – a parliamentary vote (by a 2/3 majority) would be sufficient.

Revision of the Constitution may be initiated by the President of Romania on proposal of the Government, at least one fourth of the number of Deputies or Senators, and at least 500000 citizens entitled to vote. The citizens who initiate the revision of the Constitution must come from at least half of the counties. Each of these counties and in Bucharest must be registered

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at least 20000 signatures in support of this initiative. In 2009, President Traian Băsescu sent a letter requesting a referendum to the presidents of both Houses of Parliament, on the day of the presidential election, to consult the public about reducing Parliament to a single chamber with a maximum of 300 MPs. Legal committees of Parliament have given a negative opinion.

The fundamental rights and freedoms from the Constitution of Romania are: individual freedom, right to defence, freedom of movement, personal and family privacy, inviolability of domicile, secrecy of correspondence, freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, right to information, right to education, access to culture, right to protection of health, right to a healthy environment, right to vote, right to be elected, right to be elected to the European Parliament, freedom of assembly, right of association, labour and social protection of labour, prohibition of forced labour, right to strike, right of private property, economic freedom, right of inheritance, living standard, protection of children and young people, protection of disabled persons, right of petition, right of a person aggrieved by a public authority.

Students CireĹ&#x;ică Gabriel and Andriescu Andrei

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SLOVENIA SLOVENIAN PARLIAMENT Slovenia is a parliamentary democratic republic.

The head of state is the President who is elected every five years. The acting authority is the government of the Republic of Slovenia, led by the Prime Minister and composed of several different ministers. The Prime Minister is proposed by the President of the Republic and is confirmed by the National Assembly.

The bicameral or two-housed parliament of Slovenia consists of the National Assembly and the National Council. The constitution does not anticipate equal political power for both houses.

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY The National Assembly consists of ninety members, including a member of the Hungarian and a member of the Italian minority. Members of the assembly have a four-year mandate.

The assembly has a legislative, voting and supervising function. It ratifies constitutions, passes laws, calls referendums and elects the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Assembly. It also elects ministers and decides whether the government and the ministers are staying until their mandate runs out.

In comparison with the other lower houses of parliament, the national assembly has more voting functions.

The National Assembly consists of 14% women and 86% men.

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NATIONAL COUNCIL The National Council consists of forty members. It is represented by social, economic, professional and important local groups. It does not have the same function as the upper house of the parliament because the constitution does not provide that right.

ELECTION SYSTEM Each citizen gets universal suffrage when he is 18 years old. With it, he gets the right to vote and to stand for election. The most attended are elections for national assembly.

The country is divided in 8 territorial units.

From each of these units, there are 11 elected members for the National Assembly. A member of the Hungarian and a member of the Italian minority are elected from two special election units, one for each minority.

Elections for the National Assembly are every 4 years, elections for the National Council are every 5 years.

The President of the republic and the mayors are elected by direct general elections with the system of absolute majority. The candidate who gets more than half of all votes is elected. If nobody gets more than half of the support in the first round of elections, there is the second round with the best two candidates from first round contesting.

The President of the country is elected every 5 years, but the Mayor runs only for 4 years.

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SPAIN SPANISH CONSTITUTIONS

Page15

Spanish constitution of 1978 Following the death of General Franco in 1975, which heralded the end of 36 years of crippling dictatorship, Spain has become a parliamentary democracy. After Franco’s death, political parties were legalised, the Socialists in February 1977 and the Communists in April 1977. The first general elections were held in 1979 and were won by the Union de Centro Democratica (UCD) led by Adolfo Suarez, who was largely credited with transforming Spain from a dictatorship into a democracy.

Franco

Adolfo Suarez

NEW CONSTITUTION The new Spanish constitution of 6th November, 1978, is arguably the most liberal in western Europe. The most important task of the constitution was to devolve power to the regions, which were given their own governments, regional assemblies and supreme legal authorities.

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POLITICAL SYSTEM

PARLIAMENT The national parliament has two chambers, the lower of which is the Congress of Deputies and the upper is the Senate. The Congress consists of 350 members representing Spain’s 50 provinces and the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Members of Congress are elected by a system of proportional representation for four years. There are 254 members of the Senate who are elected directly by a first-past-the-post system. The Senate represents the 17 autonomous regions. The Senate has the power to amend or veto legislation initiated

by Congress.

Under the law, the official result of a general election in Spain in made public five days after the vote. This allows sufficient time for recounts and disputed results, if necessary. After the members have been sworn in, the King meets with the party leaders and asks one of them – usually the leader of the largest party – to form a government in Spain, which must then be ratified by parliament. The leader of the party of government becomes the President of Spain and has his official residence in the Moncloa Palace in Madrid.

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The Moncloa Palace

The Congress of Deputies

JUDICIARY The Constitutional Court is responsible for ensuring that laws passed by parliament comply with the constitution and international agreements to which Spain is party. The Judiciary is independent of the government, with the highest legal body being the ‘General Council of Judicial Power’ which has 20 independent members and is headed by the president of the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court

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TURKEY

Main building of Turkish parliament

THE TRANSITION TO NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY The Entente Powers, who were the victors of the First World War, had shared the Ottoman country on paper. According to these plans of sharing, the political existence of the Turkish nation was completely eliminated and, except for a small region, the land on which she had lived for a thousand years was being confiscated. Based on the provisions of the Mudros Armistice which was signed on 30 October 1918, some locations in the Turkish homeland started to be occupied as of 1 November 1918.

Various separatist organizations entered into preparations for revolt while the Turkish Army was being dissolved. Right after this, towards the end of 1918 some of the patriots in Anatolia and Thrace started to establish resistance organizations under the name of "Defence of Rights". Although some intellectuals thought about the means for liberation, it was not easy to unite the forces and to open a struggle that would create a national and a general awakening. Disorganization, lack of means and a general pessimism was observed almost everywhere in the country due to different opinions. Mustafa Kemal Pasha put forth that there would not be any other means of liberation in this situation other than the founding of a new, independent Turkish State based on national sovereignty.

On 15 May 1919, one day after the Greeks occupied Ä°zmir, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who was appointed the 9th Army Inspector, departed from Istanbul to Anatolia for his military headquarters. The process of transition in Turkish history from personal sovereignty to national sovereignty was also started with the arrival of Mustafa Kemal (AtatĂźrk) in Samsun on 19 May 1919.

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The preparations made at Samsun and later at Havza began the process of liberation.

Notices were distributed which made known that the national movement had started, such as, "...the liberation of our history and our national independence will only be feasible with the defense of the nation as a single body..." Everywhere instructions were given to military and civilian offices for the organization of protest demonstrations. The first preparatory activities for reaching this objective, that lasted ten days, were concluded on 21-22 June 1919 with the famous "Amasya Circular" which could be considered as the starting point for national sovereignty. In this short, but meaningful document, it is being stated in an explicit language, "the independence of the nation will be saved once more by the determination and decisiveness of the people". The basic points of the Amasya Circular are as follows: 1. The Istanbul Government is not performing the requirements for the responsibilities they have undertaken.

2. The independence of the nation will be saved once more by the determination and decisiveness of the people.

3. The existence of a national delegation that is distant from all kinds of constraints and controls is mandatory to start acting according to the conditions and situation of the country and to make its rights heard in a loud voice by the world.

4. It has been decided to gather a national congress in Sivas that is the most secure location in Anatolia from all aspects.

5. For this it is necessary to send immediately three representatives who have gained the trust of the country from every subdivision of each province so that they can arrive as quickly as possible.

6. Just in case, this matter should be kept in the form of a national secret and the representatives, where necessary, should make their trips in secret.

7. In the name of the Eastern provinces, a congress will gather at Erzurum on 23 July. If the representatives of the other provinces can come to Sivas at this date, then the members of the Erzurum Congress will leave to attend the Sivas General Congress.

THE NATIONAL PACT IS IN SUMMARY AS FOLLOWS: The places where the citizens live in units composed of religion, race and origin cannot be broken away from the country in any manner within the drawn boundaries of the Armistice Agreement signed at the end of the World War. The Straits can be opened on the condition that Istanbul, the centre of the Ottoman Sultanate and the Caliphate, is found to be secure.

It is necessary to hold a referendum in Kars, Ardahan and Batum which were wished to be held outside of the Armistice boundaries and in Western Thrace that was severed from us previously. Also a referendum should be held in the locations in the Ottoman State where Arabs are in the majority. No agreement will be accepted that will limit our political and economic independence. If these conditions are not accepted, then it is impossible to make peace.

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In response to this decision, the Entente Powers forced the Istanbul Government to begin to act against the national forces. Istanbul was officially occupied on 16 March 1920. The Chamber of Deputies was raided. The supporters of the Anatolian movement and a number of intellectuals were arrested. The Official Departments were seized. The Ottoman state was de facto terminated on 16 March. The Parliament, which gathered two days later, was left no choice but to stop performing their activities for a while. It was dispersed by the sultan on 11 April 1920. The last Ottoman Chamber of Deputies had become a thing of the past. The national and legal basis of the principle of the "indivisibility of the Turkish homeland and the people" that is found in the current Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, is the spirit of the "National Pact" which is still alive today.

FOUNDING OF THE TURKISH GRAND NATIONAL ASSEMBLY Three days after the occupation of Istanbul, Atat端rk published his famous 19 March 1920 announcement. It was established in definite and resolute expressions in the announcement that, "an Assembly would be gathered in Ankara that would possess extraordinary powers, how the members who would participate in the assembly would be elected and the need to undertake elections at the latest within fifteen days".

Furthermore, the members of the dispersed Chamber of Deputies could also participate in the Assembly in Ankara. The Turkish Grand National Assembly, established on national sovereignty held its first opening session with the participation of enthusiastic people on 23 April 1920.

PROCLAMATION OF THE REPUBLIC The principle of national sovereignty brought with the Constitution of 1921 and the will of the Sultan created a contradiction. The office of the sultanate remained in a void. The sultanate was abolished with a decision made by the TGNA on 1 November 1922. The sultanate was abrogated and personal sovereignty legally became a thing of the past. The natural result of this decision would be the founding of the Republic regime. On 13 October 1923, a decision was approved to make Ankara the capital city. On 29 October 1923, the motion of Atat端rk and his colleagues to change some articles of the Constitution was accepted in the Grand National Assembly with applause and a unanimous vote. In the first article of the Constitution was placed the provision "The form of government of the Turkish State is a Republic". The evening of the same day, Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atat端rk) was elected the first President of the Republic of Turkey.

With the abolition of the sultanate and the proclamation of the Republic, the "Caliphate", which was continuing its existence within the system, also reached a situation where it was unnecessary and non-functional. The draft bill of the law given by Sheik Saffet Effendi, the Urfa Member of Parliament and his colleagues on 3 March 1924, was accepted in the General Assembly and the Caliphate was abolished and the duties of the caliph also became a thing of the past.

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THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTION The unchangeable basic provisions According to the fourth article of the Constitution, the provisions in the first, second and third articles related to the form of State, the attributes of the Republic, the indivisibility of the State, the official language, the flag, the national anthem and the capital city are unchangeable and it cannot be proposed that they be changed. These basic provisions which are definitely guaranteed in the Constitution are listed as follows: ARTICLE 1. The Turkish State is a Republic.

ARTICLE 2. The Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state governed by the rule of law; bearing in mind the concepts of public peace, national solidarity and justice; respecting human rights; loyal to the nationalism of Atat端rk, and based on the fundamental tenets set forth in the Preamble.

ARTICLE 3. The Turkish State, with its territory and nation, is an indivisible entity. Its language is Turkish.

Its flag, the form of which is prescribed by the relevant law, is composed of a white crescent and star on a red background. Its national anthem is the "Independence March". Its capital is Ankara.

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