Statutes of TSC

This is the revised version of the text released in Istanbul Postası Newspaper dated August 27, 1976, revised in the general assembly meetings of 10.2.1984, 13.2.1988, 2.2.1994, 18.6.1997 according Associations Law no. 2098.

Article 1. Name of the society is the Turkish Society of Cardiology.
Article 2. The center of the society is in Istanbul.
Article 3. The Address of the Society is Meliha Avni Sözen (Ortaklar) Street. 4/7 Aksu Apt., Mecidiyeköy, 80290 İstanbul.
Article 4. Objectives, Working Topics and Modes of Operation of the Society

a. To follow the research, works and the advances in cardiovascular area and to promote research and work in this field in Turkey
b. To work on community health issues related on cardio-vascular diseases
c. To convene informative and educational meetings for medical society and for public
d. To establish charitable foundations and institutions to implement these works
e. To make collaborations with the relevant institutions both in Turkey and abroad considering society regulations
f. To provide Turkish students at the Schools of Medicine in Turkey with a limited amount of scholarship
g. The society cannot interfere in religious and political affairs

Article 5. The society was established in 1963 by the doctors whose names are written in the last page

Conditions of membership to, resignation from and expelling from the society
Article 6. Membership:
There are three kinds of members. These are:
1- Full member
2- Relevant Job Groups (RJG)
3- Honorary member

Article 7. Requirements for full membership:

a. Must be legally competent to use civil rights,
b. To be older than 18,
c. Not be under permanent or temporary restriction by the Associations Law to become a member of the society,
d. If the apoplicant is a civil servant, to obtain permission from competent authority of the institution he/she works,
e. Must be specialised in Cardiology, Cardiothoracic Surgery and Pediatric Cardiology (the rights gained before this revision was put into force are all reserved).
Those who want to become a member apply to Management Board with a petition. The Board evaluates the applications in 30 days, make decisions about them and the petitioner is informed about the decision in writing. Membership process of eligible nominee is completed after the nominee pays their membership registration fees and the annual membership subscription fees to the society. It is compulsory to pay the annual membership subscription fees.

Article 8.

1. Membership for the Relevant Job Groups RJG:
Individuals that are involved in research on causes of or diagnosis and treatment of cardio-vascular diseases, or individuals that have an affiliation with related disciplines on policies on communal level can be members to Turkish Society of Cardiology. These individuals declare their request for becoming a member by applying to the Turkish Society of Cardiology Management Board. Membership procedure is completed upon approval of application by Turkish Society of Cardiology Management Board and payment of entrance and membership fees. membership registration fees and the annual membership subscription fees for these individuals cannot exceed ¾ of full member fees. RJG members can participate in all scientific activities of the society and benefit equally from all the rights of the full members. However, they do not have the right to elect or to be elected at the general assembly and cannot be members of the Board or other administrative boards.

2. Honorary Member:
Honorary members are those who provide material and moral support to the society or those whose membership seems beneficial for the institution. Residence requirements are not obligatory for non-Turkish honorary members.

Article 9. The ending of the membership.
The membership ends by being expelled or by resignaiton.

a. Resignation: the Management Board erases from the documents the record of the member, who informs that he leaves with his own will by a petition.
b. Being expelled: The following elements are reasons to be expelled from the membership.
aa. Not paying the membership and subscription fees for two years (Ones whose memberships have ended due to failing to pay their membership and subscription fees for two years, are also subject to the same application procedures to become a member again).
bb. The reasons written below:
1. Acting in the way that does not fall into line with the society’s honor and pride,
2. To be found guilty of disgraceful acts,
3. To act against the aims of the society and to get involved in procedures to break up the society,
4. To loose the right to be a member of society according to the Associations Law no. 2098
5. In the event of these conditions to be determined, the membership record is erased by the Society Management Board.


Article 10. Members’ rights:
Nobody can be obliged to become a member of the society and stay as a member in the society.
a. Every full member has only one right to vote on his/her own in General Assembly.
b. Honorary members can pay membership registration and annual fees if they wish, however this does not provide them the right to vote.

Article 11. Organs of the society:
a. General Assembly,
b. Management Board,
c. Board of Auditors,
d. Board of Honor,
e. Nomination Board
Organs and/or auxiliary establishments (i.e. working groups) sharing duty and responsibility with the Management Board can be found. However, duties, competences and responsibilities of General Assembly and Board of Auditors cannot be transferred to those organs.

Article 12. General Assembly:
The General Assembly is assembled regularly in February every two years (in even years); or extraordinarily with the written request of one fifth of the society members. General Assembly is invited to the meeting by the Management Board.

Article 13. Invitation procedures:
The Management Board organizes the list of the members who have the right to attend the General Assembly according to the society statutes. The members who are going to attend the General Assembly are invited at least fifteen days ago by informing its date, time and agenda on a local newspaper. In this invitation, the date of the second meeting should also be depicted in case the first meeting cannot be realized by achieving the presence of the majority of the members. However, the time between the two meetings cannot be less than a week.

The date, time and place is informed in a written form to the local authorities at least fifteen days before the meeting day and the list of the members that have the right to attend the meeting is also attached to the letter. If the meeting is postponed due to another reason, this situation is revealed to the members by placing a second announcement in the same newspaper which the meeting announcement was made to, by stating the reasons. The second meeting has to be made within two weeks after the postponing date. When calling the members the procedures on the former paragraph are applied. The General Assembly cannot be postponed more than once.

Article 14. Meeting place:
The General Assembly meetings cannot be held in a place outside the city where the society is registered.

Article 15. Quorum for the meeting:
General Assembly, according to the society regulations gets together when one more than half of the members who have the right to attend the meeting attend it. If the quorum is not met at the first meeting, majority is not required at the second meeting. However, the number of the members who attend this second meeting cannot be less than two times of the total number of the Society Management and Auditing Board members.

Article 16. Procedures of holding the meeting:
The meeting is done at the date; time and place informed to the local government authorities. The members attend the meeting place by signing next to their names on the lists prepared by the Management Board. If the quorum is met, this is identified by an official report. The meeting gets started by the President of the Management Board or by one of the Management Board members whom he assigns. After the opening, a chairman, a deputy chairman and necessary number of secretaries are elected. The meeting is ruled by the chairman. The secretaries prepare the official report and sign it together with the chairman and deputy chairman; all of these proceedings and official reports are given to the Management Board in order to be given to the local government authorities.

Article 17. Issues to be discussed at the meeting:
Only articles on the agenda are discussed at the General Assembly meeting. However, the issues wanted to be discussed by at least one tenth of the members who are already there have to be put on the agenda and discussed.

Article 18. The mission and authorities of the General Assembly:
a. Electing the organs of the society,
b. Changing the statutes of the society,
c. Discussing the management board activity and audit board reports, absolving the Management Board,
d. Discussing the budget prepared by the Management Board and accepting it either as it is or by changing it,
e. Empowering the Management Board on the issues of buying the needed real estates for the society or selling the assets of the society.

Article 19. Management Board and Nomination:
a. The Management Board is the executive organ of the society. Eleven full members and five substitute members are elected with secret vote by the general assembly; full members are elected to each one of the specific posts. In addition, the Past-President of the society that served during the previous term takes a seat in the newly elected Management Board. When there is an absence at the full members the substitute member who has had the most votes, is called to mission; and, if needed, a new job division can be made, and the new members’ mission is decided by the Management Board. The Management Board is made of one President, two Vice Presidents, one Secretary General, two secretaries, one accountant, one treasurer, three members and the Past-President for one term. Except the President and Secretary General positions, the other members can only stay at the management board only for one term at each post. The President and Secretary General can be elected at most two consecutive terms. For other positions, Board members cannot be elected more than three terms (6 years).

b. Nominating Board, by also sounding members out, nominates the eleven members for the next term to serve in the Management Board and proposes to the next General Assembly. Nominating Board consists of five members, four of these are chosen by the General Assembly. To be elected as a member of the Nominating Board it is necessary to have worked at the Society’s Management Board or to be a member of the Turkish Society of Cardiology for at least 15 years. The Past-President of the Management Board presides customarily to the Nominating Board. If the Past-President is absent for any reason, the current President undertakes this mission. In this case, the restriction that he/she cannot be a member of the Management Board for the following period does not apply. Nominating Board members, cannot be nominated as members to the following term’s Management Board. Nominating Board meets at least once in one term.

c. The names of the members nominated for the Management Board and the posts they are nominated are circulated to all the Society –General Assembly- members five months before the date of election. The members other than those nominated can apply themselves or can be named by other members as a candidate by indicating the post in the Management Board one month before the General Assembly.

d. Nominating Board members of the next term are chosen by the General Assembly by secret vote from amongst the candidates shown by the former Nominating Board or candidates who bear the required conditions and applied themselves or named by other members one month before the General Assembly for this Board.

e. To be a candidate for the Vice President and Secretary General positions it is a prerequisite to have served at the Management Board for at least one term; and for the position of presidency the candidate should have served as the president, vice president or secretary general for at least one term.

Article 20. Duties and power of the Management Board:

Duties and power of the Management Board are as follows:
a. To put decisions of General Assembly into practice and to carry out orders of the statutes,
b. To prepare short and long term studies, plans and programs for the society’s various activities in science and public health,
c. To regulate the activities of the working groups and check them, to establish required auxilliary working groups and committees when necessary,
d. To strive to provide possibilities of establishing and operating care, research and surveillance centers in the field of cardiovascular diseases; to motivate and reward scientific researches in cardiovascular field, organize scientific meetings in the country and abroad and participate to these meetings, to develop and apply programs and campaigns for education of people in medico-social field and try to improve possibilities for those activities,
e. To search all kinds of support possibilities for patients included in the fields of activities of the society and to help them as far as possible,
f. To determine eligible staff for society’s recruitment and to fix their salaries. To setup society’s budget,
g. To keep conserve and develop the assets of the society,
h. To take decisions about society expenditures,
i. In the case of membership of non-Turkish citizens, to report them to the local government authorities within ten days,
j. To decide to open branches of the society in required places, to propose it in the General Assembly and after getting the General Assembly’s approval, to determine the board of founders and to authorize them,
k. In appropriate cases, to join and/or establish federations and confederations with other medical societies aiming to carry out scientific studies, upon getting the General Assembly’s approval.

Article 21. Duties of Members of the Management Board:
President: He or she represents the society in the home and abroad; puts decisions of the Management Board into practice; presides meeting of the board, examines documents that makes the society obliged or oblige with the accountant member and then approve them.

Vice President: He or she carries on the president’s duties when the president is absent or the president thinks it necessary in some cases.
Secretary-General: He or she puts in order domestic and international correspondences; prepares the agendas of the, Management Board ensures announcing and writing of necessary registers and decisions; checks activities of working groups.

Secretaries: They assist secretary general in his denoted affairs. If Secretary General thinks it necessary, he or she requests from his/her deputies to make work division in certain topics.
Accountant Member and Treasurer: He or she is responsible for orderly pursuit of expenditures and incomes and keeping valuable documents.
Members: They participate to meetings of the Management Board through the right to vote. They take on duties given by the Management Board.
Past-President: As a former member of the Management Board for one term, he or she has the right to vote; presides the Nominating Boardfor two terms at most.

Article 22. When necessary, the Management Board can employ adequate number of professional employees with convenient wages.

Article 23. Duties of the Board of Auditors:
Board of Auditors is elected by the General Assembly as 3 full members and 3 substitute members. They are charged with inspecting financial and other affairs of the society.
In cases that defectiveness appears in activities of the Management Board, they can directly call society members for an extraordinary general assembly meeting.

Article 24. Board of Honor:
Board of Honor consists of three full, three substitute members chosen by the General Assembly for two years. The full members get together and choose a president. Board of Honor, meets according to the wish or advice of the Management and Auditing Boards analyze and decides by listening to the situation of the members and, if needed, hearing the members in question themselves; then informs the the concerned ones and the relevant organs of the Society about the decision made, in writing. The decisions which require the approval of the General Assembly are discussed and approved by the General Assembly.

Article 25. Working Groups:
For carrying on the activities to achieve the aims of the society and in order to apply the decisions made by the General Board and the Management Board, the Management Board can establish working groups according to specific subjects. In addition, to execute some temporary activities, temporary working groups can be directly established by the Management Board. Working group activities are executed according to the regulations prepared Management Board.

Article 26. Income Sources of the Society
a. The income sources of the society consist of the annual membership payments, the donations of honorary members, donations made by the benevolent people, properties and money that will come as wills, immovable donations, all the revenues from meetings trips and activities that the society organizes upon getting permission from the state authorities.
b. All the income of the society are kept recorded in a notebook, which shows the places that they come from, names of the people who make donations, the dates that they are collected, the records of the donations, their sorts, conditions, values and amounts.
c. The amounts of membership registration fees to the society and the annual membership payments are decided by the Management Board.
d. Society’s cash assets are invested as deposits at national banks, or in State and Treasury bonds in the name of the society; the state bonds or bills are kept at a safebox in national bnanks.
e. There cannot be money and valuables worth more than 10 golden Turkish Liras in the Society Management Board’s vault cash. In case of need the necessary amount of cash is drawn from the bank accounts of the society by the signatures of both the president and the treasurer.
f. For the donations, official receipts of the society stamped and signed by the president or the treasurer are given to the donators.

Article 27. Following notarially authenticated registers are held in the society:

a. Member registers
b. Casebook
c. slip book for income and expenditure account
d. Income and expenditure account book
e. Budget, final accounts and balance book
f. Furniture and fixtures account book
Society incomes are collected by giving an official receipt and the expenditures are made against an official invoice or another official expenditure receipt. On the collection receipt, the signature and identity of the donator are should be taken. The obligatory time to keep the documents of income and expenditure is five years; longer terms of keeping the documents determined by private laws and regulations prevail in cases specified. Management Board determines the collectors of the society and informs the local government authorities in writing.

Article 28. Internal auditing of the society:
Internal auditing of the society is conducted by the Auditing Board according to the Society’s statutes and Associations Law and regulations. Specific internal regulations for audit can be proposed to and put in effect by the General Assembly in order to provide better procedures for the Board of Auditors by strengthening the solidarity between the members of the society who got together to achieve the aims of the society by having a consensus, to discipline the member relations, to accomplish the decided activity plan and the program put in plan with the budget in the best possible way.

How to change the statutes:

Article 29. The statutes of the society can be changed by the General Assembly on condition of putting in the agenda of the usual or extraordinary meeting of the General Assembly and informing the members about the proposals of change in writing 15 days before the date of the meeting. The decision majority for the regulation change is 2/3 of the votes of the members present at the General Assembly meeting.

Article 30. Dissolution of the society:
a. Dissolution of the society by the decision of General Assembly: The General Assembly of the Society can always decide to dissolve the Society. To be able to decide dissolution, at least 2/3 of full members should be present in the General Assembly meeting must participate in the council. If the qualifying majority is not achieved in the first meeting for dissolution, members are summoned to the council for second time according to the Article 13. Disregarding the number of attendance, the second meeting gathered accordingly can discuss the issue of dissolution. The decision of dissolution can be made by the votes of at least 2/3 of the members present in the second gathering. Dissolution of the Society is reported in writing to the local government authorities in five days by the Management Board.
b. When the society is dissolved by the decision of the General Assembly its properties will be given to the Turkish Medical Association.
Article 31. In cases that are not covered in this statute, relevant articles of Associations Law no. 2098 prevail.