participating in the decision-making mechanisms, and taking part in the authorized bodies of political parties. In this respect, it can be argued that the situation seems dire in Turkey. With the amendment made in Bylaw of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on 16 October 2018, the participation of Civil Society Organizations in the legislative process has been made impossible. During the discussions on the legislative proposals in the parliamentary committees, the provision which allows civil society to submit opinions to the committee meetings was removed from the bylaws. Currently, there are only 5 persons with disabilities among a total of 6oo members of parliament. There is no one mayor who is a person with disability among the 1,397 mayors who are elected as local administrators. Again, there is no official statistics of persons with disabilities between 20.498 municipal councilors and 1,251 members of the Provincial Assembly, and if any, no information regarding the gender distribution of these members has been provided. The YSK publishes statistics on the gender distribution of candidates who have won the elections. According to the published statistics, 2,198 of the 20,498 Municipal Assembly Members are women. Between 1,251 of the Provincial Assembly members, 60 of them are women, 1,191 of them are men. These statistics reveal the patriarchal structure of the decision making mechanisms. It is not difficult to predict that for women with disabilities, participation is much more difficult. In 2014, the Association for the Protection of Persons with Visual Disability (Görme Engellileri Koruma Derneği) which referred to an informal study, declared that only 30 of 20,498 municipal councilors in the country were persons with disabilities. The President, Vice-Presidents, Secretary, etc. of the top executives of the political parties represented in the Assembly are not persons with disabilities. There are no persons with disabilities among the deputies, deputy governors and district governors who are appointed as ministers, deputy ministers and local administrators. Moreover, there is no action plan or strategy document prepared by the State to increase the participation of persons with disabilities in political life and decision making mechanisms. At the neighborhood level, there are a few occurrences of neighborhood unit representatives (muhtar) who are persons with disabilities, or of people with disabilities running for office; however nation-wide statistics on this issue are not available. 25