Turkey's government will expand efforts to adopt a controversial and long-awaited amnesty law that was blocked by a presidential veto, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said Saturday.
"We have decided that re-submitting the amnesty law to the president will be appropriate from a social point of view," Ecevit told reporters after a meeting with his two coalition partners.
"We will do what is necessary to launch the required procedures in parliament next week," he added.
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer sent the amnesty law back to parliament on Friday, saying it was discriminatory and anti-constitutional.
He also accused the government for issuing the amnesty in order to decrease the population in Turkey's overcrowded jails, an idea which "lacked any legal value."
If the law came into force, it would reduce jail terms by 10 years and also suspend ongoing cases against people on charges which carry jail sentences of up to 10 years.
The law also suspends prison sentences of up to 12 years for offences relating to freedom of expression in the media or at public meetings.
Excluded from the amnesty were people convicted or facing charges of separatism, incitement, corruption, drug trafficking, money laundering, rape, fraud, membership in criminal gangs and breaches of tax and banking laws.
Asked whether the law will be modified, Ecevit only said: "It depends on the situation in parliament."
If the amnesty is passed again without any amendment, Sezer will be forced to approve it as he has only a single veto right on the same law. But the president can then ask the constitutional court to abolish the law after he approves it.
The planned anmesty has been the subject of heated debates since last year when Ecevit's wife, Rahsan, made the proposal after seeing innocent children forced to stay in jails with their convicted mothers.
In August 1999, public outrage forced former President Suleyman Demirel to veto the amnesty's original version that pardoned those who committed political murders and criminal gangs, but not prisoners of conscience.
The delays in modifying the text because of disagreements within the coalition has triggered a series of prison riots by inmates anticipating an amnesty.
More than half of the 72,000 inmates in Turkish jails and many others still on trial were expected to benefit from the amnesty -- ANKARA (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
