The “Antalya Regional Case Law Forum” was held on 9-10 June 2022 in Antalya under the Joint Project on “Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of Court of Cassation”. Mehmet Akarca, First President of the Court of Cassation, Bekir Şahin, Chief Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation, Fevzi Yıldırım, Secretary General of the Court of Cassation, first vice presidents, chamber presidents, bench members, rapporteur judges and public prosecutors of the Court of Cassation, chamber presidents and bench members from Antalya and Konya regional courts of appeal, judges from first instance courts, as well as national and international experts attended the two-day event.
In his opening remarks, Mehmet Akarca, President of the Court of Cassation, indicated that the Court of Cassation, and courts in general, had been going through a restructuring process to increase judicial quality and added that the most important duty of the Court of Cassation and its greatest responsibility towards society is to ensure case law unity with a view to guaranteeing legal security, equality before the law and legal foreseeability. Pınar Başpınar, Head of Operations of the Council of Europe Programme Office in Ankara, highlighted the role of the Court of Cassation with her following remarks: “The Court of Cassation plays a key role in ensuring legal security and foreseeability, improving case law consistency and unity, ensuring efficiency and safety of document management, preventing unreasonable delays in judicial reviews and unnecessary recourse to remedies through accessible and clear case law.” Fevzi Yıldırım, Secretary General of the Court of Cassation, made a presentation on “The Road Map for the Improvement of Case Law Unity and Evaluation of Key Findings” following the opening remarks.
The sessions were moderated by Eyup Yeşil, First Vice President and Head of the General Assembly of Criminal Chambers, and Adem Albayrak, First Vice President and Head of the General Assembly of Civil Chambers of the Court of Cassation. Speakers who contributed to these sessions with their presentations included Nihat Altuğ, President of the 6th Criminal Chamber and Şevkiye Özak, Member of the 11th Civil Chamber of the Antalya Regional Court of Appeal, Zeynep Uçar Tagney, Senior Jurist from the European Court of Human Rights, Assoc. Prof. Ali Ersoy Kontacı, Council of Europe Consultant and Faculty Member at the Faculty of Law of Ankara University, and Nina Betetto, Former President of the Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE) and Judge at the Slovenian Supreme Court.
In the two-day forum where group work and plenary sessions were held, members of the Court of Cassation and judges from first instance courts and regional courts of appeal exchanged knowledge and experience. In this way, vital steps were taken to disseminate the case law at country level and to increase judicial quality.
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.
