The Working Group Meeting on “The In-Service Training Policy of the Court of Cassation and Reasoned Judgments” was held in Bolu on 17-18 December 2021 under the Joint Project on “Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of Court of Cassation”. In the meeting, the training policy of the Court of Cassation was discussed, and a general briefing was given to the decision makers at the Court on the activities envisaged to be conducted under the training component of the Project. In addition, the topic of reasoned judgments, an important element of the training component, was addressed in detail and the “Draft Guidelines on Reasoned Judgments” of the Court of Cassation was evaluated.
Cristian Urse, Head of the Council of Europe Programme Office in Ankara, and Mehmet Akarca, President of the Court of Cassation, spoke in the opening of the event. In his opening remarks, Urse expressed his satisfaction with the increased cooperation between the Council of Europe and the Court of Cassation. He pointed out that the joint aim was to support the Court of Cassation in dealing its workload, to improve the quality of judicial decisions, and to contribute to higher case law consistency and a new training policy would be developed in this regard. He indicated that the meeting was of great importance in terms of the training policy to be formulated. Akarca, on the other hand, noted that the reasoned judgments of the Court of Cassation played an essential role in terms of training component of the Project, and that it was a key requirement for the Court to handle this issue in line with its educative and pioneering role.
Approximately 110 participants, including chamber presidents, bench members, rapporteur judges and public prosecutors of the Turkish Court of Cassation, attended the meeting. The sessions were moderated by Eyup Yeşil, First Vice President and Head of the General Assembly of Criminal Chambers, Adem Albayrak, First Vice President and Head of the General Assembly of Civil Chambers, Osman Atalay, President of the 1st Criminal Chamber and Dr Seracettin Göktaş, President of the 9th Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation. Mehmet Akarca, President of the Court of Cassation, moderated the closing session. Speakers who contributed to these sessions with their presentations included Fevzi Yıldırım, Secretary General of the Court of Cassation, Güniz Gürer, Project Manager of the Council of Europe, Prof. İnayet Aydın, Faculty Member at the Faculty of Educational Sciences of Ankara University, Prof. Cennet Engin Demir, Faculty Member at the Faculty of Education of Middle East Technical University, and Assoc. Prof. Ali Ersoy Kontacı, Faculty Member at the Faculty of Law of Ankara University.
The Joint Project on “Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of Court of Cassation” is co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and the Court of Cassation of Turkey is the end beneficiary of the Project.
