Sayfa 161Looking at the “New Constitution” through the Lens of South Africa and Chile…
M. Gözde ATASAYAN…
Abstract
The discussions around the “new constitution” in Türkiye have always remained on the agenda from the past to the present. The desire to construct a genuinely meaningful “social contract” in every sense, from the process of creation to its content, through participatory means, in-depth discussions, a culture of mutual understanding, embracing all our diversity, and building a new constitution through reconciling our past reckonings and confrontations, has always been alive. In this study, both in terms of content and style of creation, by examining the 1996 South African Constitution that stands as a global example for its transformative constitutionalism and the recent Chilean Constitution-making process that has been exciting due to the diversity, pluralism, negotiation phase, and participation of the Constitutional Convention, despite not having reached a conclusion yet, new questions and answers will be pursued concerning Türkiye’s journey to prepare a new constitution: with its successes and failures, possibilities and opportunities, struggles and fatigue...…
The study will solely focus on democratic constitution-making processes, whilecontent discussions will be limited by attempting to open a window to other studies. Essentially, the pursuit will involve the questions of “How can a legal society be constructed through the process of making a new constitution? How can a democratic …
Both the richness of theoretical framework and debates in academia and the main story told by the South African and Chilean experiences in practice highlight that the most important thing is…
“this effort and process”... This process is what truly matters. It will be tried again and again... Both South Africa and Chile show that a participatory, democratic constitution-making process is a long-term journey. This process also contributes significantly to a participatory citizen identity and provides a meaningful aspect in terms of confronting past pains and mistakes... A social contract, a will to coexist can be constructed in this way, however.…
In the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic, with the hope and wish to witness a constitution-making process in Türkiye, which is pluralistic, democratic, multicoloured, polyphonic, much like Türkiye, in every sense from its creation to its content……
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