Gözden Geçirilmiş Avrupa Sosyal Şartına Uyum Sağlayabilecek Miyiz?

Year 2007, Volume: 1 Issue: 12, 27 - 52, 01.01.2007

Mesut Gülmez

Abstract

Turkey has ratified the Revised European Social Charter and the

Abstract

Amending Protocol of 1991 which brings some changes in the control system based on the national reports. New Social Charter's 91 paragraphs out of 98 have been accepted with reserves on the 5th and 6th articles which concern trade union rights, before the publication of 2006 Progress Report. This positive step of Turkey, which was putting her well beyond the members of the European Union, was devalued because these reserves definitively will impede the benefits and the use of all social rights guaranteed by the Social Charter. When general appraisal of all conclusions of the Social Charter’s control system between 1992 and 2004 is taken into consideration, Turkey can not easily fulfill all of her commitments arising from the Revised Social Charter. Legislative and executive powers have to modify national social legislation to adapt it to the ratified articles and paragraphs of the Social Charter. National courts, on the other hand, should “directly” implement the Social Charter without waiting any adaptive legal modifications in domestic laws as the Charter is a “supranational” human rights convention according to the Constitution. The constitutional obligation of national courts to implement the Social Charter not only covers the positive text of the Charter but also all the conclusions of the European Committee of Social Rights. In order to get concrete benefits from social rights guaranteed by the Social Charter, the primary responsibility is definitely on the unions of workers and public servants. Thus, the trade unions should not perceive Social Chart as a "stepchild" enfant pauvre anymore

Keywords

Human rights and social rights, The European Social