NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTIONS AS A HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION MECHANISM: THE CASES OF THE OMBUDSMAN AND HUMAN RIGHTS AND EQUALITY INSTITUTION OF TURKEY II. TIHEK and COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS A- Competence and Responsibilities of TIHEK 1. TIHEK and Its Legal Basis In terms of the legal basis of equality institutions, the priority choice would be a constitutional regulation.19 It can be said that a constitutional regulation will provide the most robust assurance for the equality institution in terms of resolving the legitimacy issue.20 Constitutional basis is fundamental in securing the independence of institutions from the executive body and ensuring the continuity of the institution. Besides, regulation of the institution's status with the highest legal norm within the hierarchy of norms will prevent the amendment of its status with the simple majority of the legislative body. Any debate that will be raised on whether the institution will work under the legislative or executive body will be rendered meaningless with a constitutional regulation setting forth that the institution is not affiliated to any of such bodies. TIHEK does not have any constitutional basis. A clear constitutional basis is granted to the Ombudsman Institution (OI) in accordance with Article 74 of the Constitution although it is a problematic article while this was not preferred during the establishment of TIHEK and TIHEK was established with the Law No. 6701. Although this does not pose any problem by itself, the mere existence of a legal basis for the Institution calls to mind the question of whether sufficient assurance is granted or not as detailed below by considering that TIHEK is associated with the executive body and all of its members are designated by the executive body. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that there is no problem in this regard since most of such institutions have legal basis. 2. Duties and Authorities of TIHEK Equality institutions must be given as broad a mandate as possible. Duties of TIHEK are specified in Articles 9(1) and 9(3) of TIHEK Law and its duties regarding the principle of equality and fight against discrimination are as follows: a) Carrying out activities on the prevention of discrimination; b) Raising public awareness on the fight against discrimination through information and training using mass media; c) Contributing to the preparation of units related to non-discrimination in the national education curriculum; ç) Engaging in joint activities with universities in order to eliminate discrimination and improve the understanding of equality in the society, contributing to 19 Kutsal Yeşilkağıt; Berend Snijders, Between Impartiality and Responsiveness: Equality Bodies and Practices of Independence, EQUINET, 2008, p. 6, https://www.archive.equineteurope.org/IMG/pdf/EN_-_Between_Impartiality_and_Responsiveness.pdf (accessed: July 31, 2020). 20 Mohammad-Mahmoud Mohamedou, “The Effectiveness of National Human Rights Institutions”, National Human Rights Institutions: Articles and Working Papers, Birgit Lindsnaes; Lone Lindholt; Kristine Yigen (eds.), Danish Centre for Human Rights, Denmark, 2005, p. 51. See op. cit. p. 51-52 for potential legitimacy problems experienced by the equality institution and potential solution recommendations. 17