The large number of administrative cases before the Turkish courts impairs the ability of administrative courts to hear cases in a reasonable time, within the meaning of Article 6 para. 1 of the European Convention of Human Rights. To address the issue, an online consultation meeting, the first in a series of four, on the “Assessment of Pilot Judgment Procedure” was held on 27 May 2021. The aim of the meeting was to explore and analyse the pilot judgment procedures and applied methods to reduce the length and number of cases before the Turkish administrative courts by application of an efficient procedure on rapid and coherent judgements in terms of large number of cases resulting from same reason and which may form a precedent.
To this end, pilot judgment procedure applied by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) by rendering judgments on a selected case, or cases, primarily to find a solution that could be applied to similar cases resulting from the same underlying issue was examined during the meeting. In addition, similar procedure from the French administrative justice system was explored with the aim to discuss development of a tailored model for Turkey.
The meeting provided a platform to discuss current examples and possible solutions based on the experiences shared by academics, judiciary and higher courts, including the Registry of the ECtHR, the French Conseil d’État the Council of State of Turkey (CoS) the Turkish Constitutional Court (TCC), the Council of Judges and Prosecutors, the Ministry of Justice as well as presidents and members of the Regional Administrative Courts and Pilot Courts.
Following the opening remarks of Mr Murat Şen, Secretary General of the Turkish Constitutional Court and Mr Yalçın Ekmekçi from the Turkish Council of State; Mr Murat Azaklı, Head Rapporteur from the TCC and Ms Seran Karatarı Köstü, Judge Rapporteur from the CoS gave information on the relevance of a possible pilot judgment procedure in the Turkish administrative judiciary. The meeting continued with the presentations of Mr Hüseyin Hezer, senior lawyer from the Registry of the ECtHR, Assoc. Dr Nilay Arat and Prof. Dr Murat Sezginer with valuable contributions in the field of group of identical cases procedure. The afternoon session continued with the presentations of the State Councillor Ms Christine Maugüé, Deputy President of the Litigation Section, Conseil d’État on functioning of Avis Contentieux and junction d’affaires in the French system and the reviews of international models and consideration for implementation of a group cases procedure in Turkish administrative judiciary by Mr Yalçın Ekmekçi from the CoS.
The representatives of the Turkish Constitutional Court expressed their willingness to participate and contribute in the upcoming consultation meetings and it is expected that the representatives of the Registry of the ECtHR will be involved in further meetings and consulted on the draft implementation plan and/or possible recommendations made by the Turkish stakeholders before finalisation of the series of meetings.
The Joint Project on “Improving the Effectiveness of the Administrative Judiciary and Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of the Council of State” is implemented by the Council of Europe, and co-funded by the European Union, the Republic of Turkey and 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.
