A roundtable meeting was held on 13-14 December in Ankara within the scope of the activity on conducting needs assessment analysis of conciliation mechanism under the European Union-Council of Europe Joint Project on “Promoting Alternative Dispute Resolution in Turkey”.
The meeting was organised with the attendance of 50 participants, including the Directorate General for Criminal Affairs of the Ministry of Justice, local and international consultants and stakeholders (judges, prosecutors, conciliators, lawyers, conciliation bureau staff, academicians, representatives of NGOs such as associations of conciliators and the Restorative Justice Platform), as well as the Council of Europe project team.
On the first day of the meeting, consultants presented the draft needs assessment and the comparative analysis reports with the findings of the field assessment visits, preliminary recommendations, and best practices from Europe. A gender consultant contributed to the meeting with a presentation on gender perspective to conciliation mechanism in Turkey. Following the presentations, participants discussed the recommendations that local and international consultants developed with the input having been collected during the field assessment visits, in two separate groups. The recommendations include issues related to the scope of the offenses, use of risk assessment methods to prevent re-victimisation, eligibility of specific cases to conciliation, situations where recidivism, multiple offenses exist and conciliation processes, including location, length of the conciliation meetings, appointment, inspection and training of conciliators. Moreover, participants debated on the applicability of these recommendations in the Turkish conciliation system. On the second day of the meeting, each group made a presentation on the issues raised during the discussions and addressed the actions necessary for aligning the laws and practices with the recommendations.
The results of the discussions in the meeting will feed into the preparation of the final needs assessment report, drafting new conciliation models such as for juvenile offenders, cases that include intimate partner violence for piloting during the later stages of the project, and further developing the conciliation mechanism in Turkey.
The Joint Project on “Promoting Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in Turkey” is co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe. The Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Turkey – Directorate General for Criminals Affairs and Directorate General for Legal Affairs are the end beneficiaries of the Project. The Central Finance and Contracts Unit is the contracting authority.
