Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is seeking sweeping new powers over the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) through legislation that would grant him unilateral authority to dismiss and promote officers, bypassing traditional military oversight mechanisms in place for decades, Turkish Minute reported.
A draft “omnibus bill” submitted to parliament by lawmakers from Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) last Friday includes measures allowing the president to expel commissioned officers between the rank of lieutenant and colonel without needing the approval of the military’s High Disciplinary Board. The legislation also authorizes Erdoğan to alter promotion waiting periods, effectively enabling him to accelerate, delay or halt officers’ advancement at his own discretion.
The government has justified the proposed expansion of presidential authority by citing the need for swift and decisive action in the face of serious disciplinary breaches. The rationale outlined in the bill states that such measures are necessary to ensure “quick and effective results against serious disciplinary incidents that could undermine the operational effectiveness of the TSK.” The aim, the text argues, is to preserve the strength and reliability of the military.
To that end, the proposal seeks to amend Turkey’s military personnel law to grant the president an authority traditionally held by institutional military bodies.
If passed, the proposed changes would mark one of the most significant overhauls of Turkey’s military personnel system in decades, with critics warning that the moves could undermine the chain of command and erode merit-based promotion in favor of political loyalty.
Opposition lawmakers and retired military officers have strongly condemned the proposal. Retired Rear Adm. Yankı Bağcıoğlu, now deputy chair of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said the reforms would damage morale and violate the principles of due process and civilian oversight.
“Assigning such authority to a single individual without judicial or institutional checks is incompatible with both democratic norms and the tradition of impartial professionalism that the military has upheld for generations,” Bağcıoğlu said. “This proposal subverts discipline itself by removing legal protections for those unjustly targeted.”
İYİ (Good) Party deputy group chairman Turan Çömez echoed similar concerns, warning that Erdoğan could personally reshape the officer corps. “From now on, promotions, retirements and dismissals won’t be governed by the rule of law or military procedure,” he said. “They’ll be decided by presidential decree. This is a clear shift toward autocracy.”
The proposed law revives a controversial debate from earlier in Erdoğan’s rule. A similar presidential power to dismiss officers was introduced via emergency decree during a post-coup state of emergency declared in the aftermath of a failed coup in July 2016 but was annulled in 2023 by Turkey’s Constitutional Court, which ruled that such authority could not be entrusted to one individual.
According to a statement from then-defense minister Hulusi Akar in November 2022, 24,706 personnel from the TSK had been expelled over their alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement since the failed coup.
The Turkish government accuses the Gülen movement of masterminding the attempted coup on July 15, 2016 and labels it a “terrorist organization,” although the movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Akar did not specify at the time how many of the 24,706 people were military and how many were civil servants working for the TSK, but they were primarily officers of all ranks.
Erdoğan is accused by critics of using the coup attempt as a pretext to crack down on non-loyalists citizens and public servants.
In recent years Erdoğan has also claimed that strict discipline is essential for national security and that the military must be shielded from ideological divisions. Pro-government media outlets have defended the legislation, citing past instances, particularly in the late 1990s, when secularist officers allegedly used their authority to marginalize religiously conservative peers.
Yet critics view the latest push as part of a broader effort by Erdoğan to reshape state institutions, including the military, judiciary and bureaucracy, in line with his political vision.
The proposed powers come amid heightened scrutiny of military personnel practices. Earlier this year, five newly commissioned lieutenants and three officers were dismissed from the armed forces after participating in an unsanctioned graduation ceremony where they chanted a secularist slogan honoring Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey. The Ministry of Defense said the dismissals were necessary to preserve discipline, but opposition leaders condemned them as politically motivated and symptomatic of creeping authoritarianism in the armed forces.
The dismissed officers are appealing their cases in an administrative court, while legal experts warn that the new legislation, if enacted, could make similar purges easier and harder to contest.
