Turkey

The most important foreign institution is Robert College where pupils are taken irrespective of race or religion. The teaching staff consists of 64 instructors of whom 31 are American. The students number about 500. The College for girls has a teach ing staff of 50 with some 35o pupils. These and other foreign schools were, at the Treaty of Lausanne, put upon the same basis as Turkish schools.

The terms of the Treaty of Lausanne allowed for the establish ment of schools for Greek and Armenian minorities. But the extermination of these races outside Constantinople has made the clauses applicable only to that city. There are 62 Greek schools with over 14,000 pupils, 53 Orthodox Armenian under the charge of the Armenian Patriarch, and 14 Armenian Catholic.

Justice and Law.

The old system which obtained before the National Assembly revised the constitution was based on the Sunni Moslem law which was religious in origin and sanction and based upon the teaching embodied in the Koran. That it worked well is undisputed and a very high standard of justice was reached even so early as the sixteenth century, when the Sultan Suliman the Magnificent raised the level of administration to a higher level than was then current in western Europe. The tradition of sound popular justice survived and the courts of the Ottoman Empire, despite the capitulations, and despite their notorious slowness were, before the time of Abdul Hamid, mediums of justice not inferior to those of Christendom. In 1869 the re ligious law was codified into a Civil Code known as the Mejelle and combined with the statute law constructed by successive Sultans. As from May 1, 1924, however, the whole of the old code was abolished and the religious sanctions removed. A new judicial system was organised on a secular basis and in 1926 a Civil Code was established based and modelled upon the present Swiss code. The courts are now classified into (I) Police or local justice courts administered by Justices of the Peace, (2) District Courts under a President and two Judges with civil and criminal powers that concern marriage and divorce, probate and civil rights, (3) Assize Courts under a President and four Judges for serious criminal cases and finally (4) the Court of Cassation which is the only court of appeal. This latter is situated at Eskishehir in Asia Minor and is independent of Angora and Constantinople.

Ministers and high state officials are tried by a High Court composed of eleven members of the Court of Cassation and ten members of the Council of State.

There are in all some 600 police courts of which 16o are in villages. Independent of all these courts are the two Tribunals of Independence which are arbitrary judicial -bodies in perpetual session but without any fixed place of session. They are like travelling assizes but their purpose is mainly political and they are the consequence of the dictatorship by which the country is really governed. Each consists of a board of three judges and they are similar to courts martial since their origin and methods are mainly military. In essence they override the law of the land as otherwise administered. Trials, however, by these courts are in public and penalties inflicted are according to the existing laws as far as possible. They are under the control of the National Assembly in theory but in fact more the instruments of the Presi dent of the Republic. They exist primarily to combat political and military conspiracies, mutiny, treason and desertion. In 1926 some 17 well known persons were condemned to death and hanged by the decisions of these tribunals as being concerned in a plot against the republic. These tribunals were, however, suspended in March 1927, though they can be reconstituted.

The change in the civil code has been followed by the abolition of polygamy and by the grant to women of equal rights in divorce and marriage, though their political status is still unchanged. In divorce in particular there have been established enactments of considerable wisdom and breadth of mind.

Foreigners are guaranteed equal rights with Turkish citizens in the law but they have neither superior status nor privileges except in certain matters of personal rights and status.

In detail the dress regulations which have the sanction of law are as follows. All officials except those to whom special uniforms are assigned must wear western costume. In the National Assem bly frock coats are obligatory and the President must wear dress clothes and a top-hat. The fez and turban are abolished. Women are not so strictly disciplined. The veil is still seen frequently in Constantinople and also in the provinces although the general custom, however, is to wear a headdress of a type based upon the modern Russian.