A Comparative Analysis of the Assembly Government System: The Cases of Turkey and Switzerland

The Assembly Government System (also known as the Conventional System), adopted in Turkey with the Teşkilat-ı Esasiye Kanunu (Constitution of 1921), is based on the principle of the unity of powers. In this system, legislative, executive, and judicial powers are concentrated in a single assembly, and no authority exists above it. The legislative body functions both as the organ that makes laws and the organ that implements them. The people’s direct participation in governance is provided only indirectly, due to the double-tiered electoral system. The primary reason for adopting the Assembly Government System while drafting the 1921 Constitution was that the prevailing conditions of the War of Independence required rapid decision-making and swift implementation of those decisions. Furthermore, the urgent need to establish a legal mechanism against the Ottoman monarchy played a decisive role in this choice. However, this system cannot be considered a full example of democracy. For this reason, Turkey’s constitutional development has evolved from the Assembly Government System toward the parliamentary system. Nevertheless, Switzerland—one of today’s democratic states—successfully applies the Assembly Government System within the framework of its Federal Constitution. At present, there is no other country that both qualifies as a democratic state and implements this system. The main purpose of this study is to compare the practice of the Assembly Government System, as used in extraordinary and crisis periods such as in the 1921 Constitution, with the manner in which it operates under the Swiss Federal Constitution as part of a democratic state.