The Presidency of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Turkey – The Legal Oddity

Abstract

In Turkey, the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Turkish: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı referred to simply as the Diyanet) is a state institution established in 1924 in Article 136 of the Constitution of Turkey. According to Article 136, the Presidency of Religious Affairs shall exercise its duties prescribed in its particular law within the general administration removed from all political views and ideas, in accordance with the principles of secularism. The official website of the Diyanet states it is obvious that in any case a corporal identity is needed to carry out religious affairs pertaining to faith that stem from the country’s own tradition and culture. Besides the religious affairs of the Islam which is the religion of the majority since the Ottoman Empire conducted in a sense of public service. Therefore the Office regulates Islamic religious affairs in a constitutional secular state. It also has a constitutional duty to ensure secularism, while referring to the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic majority in Turkey for more than 80 years. This obvious paradox was the reason for my choice examining the most important legal provisions that constitute the legal basis of the Office’s operation. By an analytical approach I examined the provisions of the Turkish Constitution on Diyanet, the legal literature dealing with the history of the Office and the governmental decrees on the operation of the Diyanet. During the research, it became obvious that the paradox – the regulation of constitutional law contra the regulation of governmental decrees – was also the subject of the Turkish Constitutional Court in several cases. The abolition of the vacuum was made formally by Act No. 6002 (1 July 2010) but no substantive change was made regarding the operation of the Office.