Starting this week and continuing throughout the exam period, Main Campus Library will remain open every day until 3 a.m. Please note that this late closing time will apply only to the reading rooms in A-Block, and that circulation services will not be available after 11:30 p.m. For those students who live off campus, there will be bus service departing from near the library building at 3:15 a.m.
Bilkent librarians hope that students and faculty enjoyed last week’s Spring Fest, and especially those of you who participated in our Treasure Hunt on Friday. With librarians dressed as swashbuckling pirates, students had to solve a series of five library-related clues and then take photos of the “solutions.” Many students joined in the fun, and a piratical good time was had by all. Yo-ho-ho!
This week, on Tuesday, the final Lunchtime Lecture for the academic year will be given by Assoc. Prof. Ece Göztepe (Department of Law). The topic of the lecture is “The Constitutional Complaint as an Alternative Way of Political Conciliation? Selected Cases.” The right to individual application (constitutional complaint) in Turkey was introduced through a constitutional amendment on September 12, 2010. The main aim of introducing such an extraordinary remedy in Turkish law was to slow down the flood of applications to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the violation decisions by the Court. It means that not all fundamental rights and freedoms of the Turkish Constitution are subject to individual application. Only those fundamental rights and freedoms that are also guaranteed in the European Convention and the Protocols ratified by Turkey are subject to constitutional complaint. This lecture will focus on the main “political” issues that have come before the Turkish Constitutional Court in the last two and half years. The term “political issues” does not refer to the so-called political question doctrine, but rather to the special case of Turkey, which faces many conflict-ridden topical areas. Even purely judicial processes can only be understood in the light of the political background. Therefore, the cases selected for the lecture concern personal liberty and security, freedom of expression, the right to hold meetings and demonstrations, the 10 percent threshold in parliamentary elections and freedom of the press—all of which have their significance and effects not only in the judicial argumentation, but also in the solution of various areas of societal conflict. The lecture will take place in the Main Campus Library Art Gallery on May 12, starting at 12:40 p.m.; lunchtime refreshments will be provided. The Library Lunchtime Lecture series will continue next year.
The Library would like to wish all students good luck in their final exams, and a pleasant summer to all Bilkenters!