Following the first phase of the needs assessment on individual application organized on 7-9 February 2017 within the Joint Project on Individual Application to the Constitutional Court in Turkey, the Needs Assessment Working Group completed the second phase of the assessment with its meetings held on 5-7 March 2017 in İstanbul and Ankara.
The Working Group consisting of 3 international and national experts had meetings with criminal and civil judges and prosecutors in the first instance and Regional Courts of Appeals, prosecutors, lawyers, academics as well as the representatives of the Council of Judges and Prosecutors, Justice Academy of Turkey and Ministry of Justice. Within the framework of the meetings, the expert group made exchanges on and evaluated the experiences of various groups about the individual application system, the challenges they faced and their recommendations for better functioning of the system.
The topics discussed during the second phase of the needs assessment includes experiences and awareness of target groups on individual application system, functioning of the system, access to and execution of the individual application judgments of the TCC, role of the judgments of the TCC in the harmonization of case laws, problems experienced during individual application process, findings of academic studies on the system in Turkey, mechanisms in domestic law and their impacts on the system.
At the end of the second phase, the experts met with the authorities of the Constitutional Court and shared their findings from their meetings.
The expert group is expected to issue their report in April.
