ERDEM-NEWSLETTER-2018-metin

384 NEWSLETTER 2018 and fields of activity. The Presidency shall be the party in the case of judicial, administrative, arbitration, and execution proceedings that have been initiated, or will be initiated, with respect to the acts and procedures of the Prime Ministry. In this manner, the Presidency shall give authority to the relevant administrative legal units to represent and pursue those lawsuits in which the Presidency is a party, and the lawsuits that have been initiated, or will be initiated, against the Presi- dency. In addition, some ministries have been merged, and some min- istries’ names have been amended. The number of ministries in the field of economics has been reduced from six to three, and the total ministry number has been reduced to sixteen. The remarkable amend- ments, in this context, are: The merger of the Ministry of Family and Social Policies and Ministry of Labor and Social Security, now under the name of the Ministry of Labor, Social Services and Family; The merger of the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Customs and Trade, now under the name of the Ministry of Economy; The merger of the Ministry of ForeignAffairs and the Ministry of European Union, now under the name of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; The merger of the Undersecretariat of Treasury under the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Finance, now under the name of the Ministry of Treasury and Finance. Another remarkable amendment is that the Ministers shall be answerable only to ‘the President’ regarding the effective, economic, and efficient usage of public resources, together with the legal and financial issues, while they were previously answerable to the ‘the Prime Minister and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey’ with respect to the same issues. The Law of the State Supervisory Board was amended: The Law on the Duties and Powers of the Chief of the General Staff of the Armies and the Law on the Establishment and Duties of the Supreme Military Council were repealed. These issues shall be regulated by Presidential decrees, instead of through laws. Various qualifications, such as graduation from certain under- graduate programs, working in certain institutions, and a membership