A top Turkish judge, Appeals Court chief judge Sami...

A top Turkish judge, Appeals Court chief judge Sami Selcuk, said the country should draw up a new constitution instead of "wasting time" amending the present charter to bring it into line with European Union standards.Critics have said the constitution, drawn up under military rule in the early 1980s, lacks sufficient protection for individual rights.Turkish officials believe the amendments will be enough to prevent a possible rebuke from the EU when the bloc issues progress reports on candidate countries later in 2001.But they do not include ending capital punishment, an EU demand which Turkey says is a long-term goal. The death penalty remains on the statute books though it has not been carried out since the mid-1980s. Nationalist deputies have argued that Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan must be executed before the death penalty is abolished.