Despite the restrictive measures taken against Covid-19 pandemic, also affecting Turkey, work under the Project on “Improving the Effectiveness of the Administrative Judiciary and Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of the Council of State” continues via productive desk research, analysis and on-line exchanges.
Two important reports have been prepared.
“Initial Assessment Report”, the first of three reports aiming at providing an “In-Depth Review of Turkish Administrative Judiciary” assessing the impact of the latest reforms and outstanding challenges facing administrative justice. This report will provide basis to the “Roadmap for an Improved Administrative Justice” to be drafted within the framework of the project. The report has been prepared by Ray Burningham, Council of Europe international consultant, through visits, meetings, interviews, focus groups, research and analysis performed between April 2019 and January 2020. The focus is on the current status of the Turkish administrative judiciary and the potential areas for development and improvements. The review has been supported by an evaluation of how cases and appeals are processed in order to identify where support or changes could improve the efficiency of procedures and quality and timeliness of decision-making. The report also includes the suggestions and recommendations on the activities to be performed in the pilot courts.
“Training Needs Assessment” Report, drafted by Marina Naumovska Milevska, Council of Europe international consultant. The report provides suggestions based on the analysis of a series of quantitative and qualitative research results of the Training Needs Assessment conducted between December 2019-February 2020 including surveys, focus group sessions; review of legislation, reports and strategic documents, and analysis of existing statistics. Within the scope of the assessment process, online surveys were performed country-wide aiming at two target groups; the administrative judges and administrative court personnel, a high response rate was achieved (approximately 31% within Survey 1 or 643 replies out of 2091 judges (total population size) and 49% within Survey 2 or 1164 replies out of 2400 court clerks).
In the report, the training needs of the members and personnel of the administrative judiciary have been identified and a proposed outline of the training programme has been determined by identifying both subjects and methods for the trainings to be provided within the scope of the project.
The next step related to the training needs component of the project will be to develop training curriculum and materials for in-service training modules to be organized for a total of 800 beneficiaries including judges, lawyers and court personnel. The training approach and modules will be tested first in selected pilot courts after the training of trainers.
Gender approach has been a part of both of the reports.
Reports will shortly be prepared for publication and will also be available online.
Improving the Effectiveness of the Administrative Judiciary and Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of the Council of State Joint Project is implemented by the Council of Europe and co-funded by the European Union, Republic of Turkey and the Council of Europe. The Turkish Ministry of Justice - Directorate General for Legal Affairs is the Lead institution and end beneficiary of the Project.
