On 30-31 January 2023, the International Symposium on Administrative Justice in Türkiye: best international practices and reform of the Turkish system was held in Ankara within the framework of the EU-CoE Joint Project on “Improving the Effectiveness of the Administrative Judiciary and Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of the Council of State” at the facilities of the Council of State of Türkiye. The aim of the event was to contribute to the exchange of the best international practices on administrative justice and to support the Turkish authorities in their efforts of the reforms in the field.
Mr Bekir BOZDAĞ, Minister of Justice of Türkiye and Mr Zeki YİĞİT, President of the Council of State of Türkiye, and Ms Eleftheria PERTZINIDOU, Deputy Head of the European Union Delegation to Türkiye attended the symposium, and made presentations. Mr Christophe POIREL, Director of Human Rights at the Council of Europe joined the event online, and emphasised the importance of the administrative judiciary in strengthening protection of human rights in Türkiye. The participants of the event included more than 500 judges of the relevant administrative courts, judge candidates, academics and legal professionals.
The symposium addressed significant topics for the administrative judiciary in Türkiye.
The first session on “Consistency of Judicial Decisions: International and National Practices” was moderated by Mr Mahmut VURAL, Acting President of the Council of State of Türkiye. In the session, Ms Rozen NOGUELLOU, Judge at Conseil d’Etat of France, Dr Klaus LÖFFELBEIN, Judge at Federal Administrative Court of Germany, Assoc. Prof Dr Gürsel ÖZKAN, Member of the Council of State of Türkiye, Dr Zühal AYSUN SUNAY, Senior Rapporteur Judge at the Council of State of Türkiye and Ms Zeynep UCAR TAGNEY, lawyer at European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) made presentations. The presentations and the discussions during the session provided insight on the methods employed in different legal systems, as well as at the ECHR to achieve consistency of the case law to promote legal certainty.
The second day of the symposium consisted of two sessions. During the session on “Reducing Workload in Administrative Judiciary” moderated by Mr Hasan GÜZELER, Acting President of the Council of State of Türkiye, the alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and other proposed ways to decrease the excessive workload in the area of the administrative judiciary were addressed. The presenters included Prof Dr Bahtiyar AKYILMAZ, Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University, Assoc. Prof Dr Nilay ARAT, Kadir Has University and Dr Hasan GÜL, Member of the Council of State of Türkiye.
The last session, dedicated to specialisation in administrative judiciary, was chaired by Mr Hakan ÖZTATAR, Director General of Legal Affairs of the Ministry of Justice of Türkiye. During the session, experts such as Mr Bülent KÜFÜDÜR, President of Regional Administrative Court of Ankara, Dr Sarah NASON, Senior Lecturer in Administrative Law and Jurisprudence at Bangor University, United Kingdom, Ms Susana ABAD SUAREZ, Judge at the Madrid Administrative Court in Spain and Mr Abdurrahman GENÇBAY, Head of Chamber at Council of State of Türkiye addressed general aspects, advantages and disadvantages of specialisation in administrative judiciary, providing comparative analysis of the administrative justice systems in Türkiye, United Kingdom and Spain.
In closing the international symposium, Dr Sarah NASON, Senior Lecturer in Administrative Law and Jurisprudence at Bangor University, Dr Halim Alperen ÇITAK, Assistant Professor at Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University and Mr Ray BURNINGHAM, International Consultant of the Project shared with the participants an overall assessment of the symposium, as well as their recommendations to improve the administrative judiciary in Türkiye.
The EU-CoE Joint Project on Improving the Effectiveness of the Administrative Judiciary and Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of the Council of State is co-funded by the European Union, the Council of Europe and the Republic of Türkiye, and implemented by the Council of Europe. The Turkish Ministry of Justice - Directorate General for Legal Affairs is the end beneficiary of the Project. The Central Finance and Contracts Unit is the contracting authority of this Project.
