Opposition parties' inquiries left unanswered in Turkish Parliament's 28th legislative term

In the 28th legislative term of the Turkish Parliament (TBMM), almost half of the 12,512 inquiries submitted by the opposition deputies were left unanswered. Additionally, none of the motions from any opposition parties was brought to the parliamentary agenda.

Sunday July 07 2024 08:51 pm

Ceren Bayar / Gazete Duvar

The performance report of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) for the legislative term following the May 14-28 elections has been finalized.

According to the response from the Office of the Speaker to the Peoples' Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu's inquiry, between June 3, 2023, and June 11, 2024, MPs submitted a total of 12,512 parliamentary inquiries.

Of these, 2,076 were answered within the stipulated time, while 4,574 were answered after the deadline. A total of 5,005 questions remained unanswered, and 855 questions were noted to be within the response period.

The Justice Ministry received the highest number of questions, totaling 1,820. It was followed by the Interior Ministry with 1,626 questions, the Environment, Urbanization, and Climate Change Ministry with 1,424 questions, and the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry with 1,029 questions. The Justice Ministry answered 1,271 out of the 1,820 questions submitted by MPs.

A total of 206 questions were dismissed because they did not comply with the provisions of the Parliamentary Rules of Procedure. The MPs with the most returned questions were Ayten Kordu (9), Ceylan Akça Cupollo (10), Newroz Uysal Aslan (10), Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu (11), Serhat Eren (11) from the DEM Party, and Seyit Torun (7) from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).

Parliamentary questions from 82 opposition MPs were rejected at least once for not complying with the Rules of Procedure.

Regarding the distribution of parliamentary questions among political parties, CHP was the party that submitted the most questions, with 4,982. It was followed by the DEM Party with 4,668 questions and the oppositional İYİ (Good) Party with 1,734 questions.

Five MPs from the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) submitted a total of 16 questions within the year.

A total of 110 motions were brought to the agenda in the 28th legislative term. All of these motions were submitted by the AKP group. The total number of motions requested by all political parties was 2,543, but none from any opposition party were included in the agenda.

(English version by Ayşenaz Toptaş)