Turkish deputy premier says legal reform is late

ISTANBUL (A.A) - Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan has said his country had been late to reform its legal system. "Legal system is perhaps the area where we lag behind much of the rest in our reform drive. As in every reform process there will certainly be issues but we have the necessary determination to solve this problem," Babacan told Thursday at the general assembly meeting of the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association, or TUSIAD, in Istanbul. Babacan said a constitutional amendment in 2010 had opened a window for a wider legal reform in country, however, added that the government's reform attempts in legal system had often been blocked by the judiciary itself. "Turkey cannot become a full-fledged democracy nor one of the biggest economies in the world without becoming a true rule of law where there is not room for arbitrariness," he said.