Prof Osman Can

CEFTUS Westminster Debate “Structural Changes Ahead of the 2015 General Elections in Turkey”

Professor Dr. Osman Can has been serving as a member of the Central Decision-Making and Administrative Committee of AK Party Since September 2012. He is Member of the AK Party’s Constitutional Committee, which leads the constitution-making process in Turkey. Professor Can graduated from the Ankara University Faculty of Law in 1992. In 1993 he began his career as a research assistant at the Faculty of Law in Erzincan. In 1997 he got his master’s degree at the University of Cologne, Germany, on “The Legal Status of President of the States in Turkish and German Constitutional Law”. In 2001 he began to work as assistant professor of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law of Erzincan University. He was appointed to the Constitutional Court as rapporteur-judge in July 2002. During this period, considered as the most turbulent period of Turkey’s political history, he was assigned the task of solving the critical constitutional problems. In 2003, Professor Can founded the Turkish-German Forum for Public Law and became the coordinator of Turkey. In 2006, he became an associate professor by unanimous decision of the Board of Higher Education Jury. His habilitations thesis was “The Democratization Process and Closing of Political Parties in Turkey”. In 2007, being the rapporteur-judge for the case of constitutional amendments, he recommended that the President of the Republic should be elected directly by the people. His recommendation was accepted. In 2010, he was a co-founder of the association Democratic Judiciary, an association calling for the impartiality and plurality of the judiciary. In the same year, the Lawyers Association honored him as the “Jurist of the Year”.