World Bulletin/News Desk

Turkish Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek told reporters on Tuesday that Parliamentary Constitution Committee would begin to write the constitution on Thursday at 11:00 a.m.      

We will firstly focus on basic rights and freedoms, and then legislation, execution, management and public services, jurisdiction, fiscal, economic and social sentences, Cicek added.      

 Political parties will shape up a catalogue on basic rights and freedoms tomorrow, and that catalogue will be the main agenda item of Thursday's meeting, said Cicek.      

He added that the committee would convene on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.       Cicek said that the committee would make decisions by the consensus of all parties, adding that the issues, on which parties were not able to agree, would be discussed later again.      

The committee has taken views from every platform including 14 political parties, 21 universities, 39 professional organizations and unions, and 79 associations and foundations for the past seven months.      

 The committee started its mission on October 19, 2011. It has three sub-committees.      

Meanwhile, at least 25,500 people shared their views about the new constitution via official web-site of the committee.       The Constitution Committee includes three members from each of the four parties represented in the parliament. Regardless of the distribution of the seats in the parliament, Justice & Development (AK) Party, Republican People's Party (CHP), Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and Peace & Democracy Party (BDP) have equal representation in the committee.       Turkey is currently using the 1982 constitution which replaced the earlier constitution of 1961.      

1982 constitution has been amended 17 times so far with changes to 113 articles. The last modification took place in September 2010 through a popular referendum (with 58 percent approval).