The Law on Amendments in Certain Laws aiming to Remove of Problems Arising from the Operation of the Regional Courts and the District Administrative Courts was published in the Official Gazette dated 5 August 2017 and entered into force
In accordance with the law, the Chief Public Prosecutor of the District Court of Justice has the authority to appeal to the District Court of Justice in order to eliminate the contradictions of the law against the final decisions of the Criminal Chambers.
Moreover, changes are made in order to resolve the problems that arise in the organization of the District Courts and District Administrative Courts i.e. application periods for appeals are extended.
Regulations that concerns the Regional Administrative Courts are can be listed as follows;
● New duties are added among the powers of the chairman of the Regional Administrative Court. According to the amendment, the chairman of the court is now given the authority to apply disciplinary punishment for the personnel directly subordinated to him.
● In cases where a court chamber can not gather with its members, the task of assign members according to seniority, order, and their relevance is given to the President of the Regional Administrative Court.
● The fact that the proceedings that established by the administration can contain more than one subject may lead to the occurrence of disputes that two different chambers of courts are in charge. This leads to the necessity of bringing together the two chambers that specializing in their fields of duty in order to resolve the dispute in the most correct way. In this respect, it is amended that if the two court chambers are in charge for one case, with the request of the regarded chamber the decision can be given in one meeting that held by these two chambers.
● With the new regulation, the task of determining the division of labor between the chambers of the District Administrative Court is given to the Board of Judges and Prosecutors for the purpose of ensuring the unity of practice. Regulations that concerns District Courts of Justice;
● According to the former regulation, the Board of Presidents of the District Court of Justice was formed with the participation of the heads of all criminal and civil law chambers. This was lead to negative results in terms of procedural economy, obstructed the specialization and delayed decision-making processes. With the new regulation, the establishment of the presidential board of the criminal chambers and the presidential board of the legal departments are set up separately, thus accelerating the decision-making processes of courts and providing specialization.
● With the new amendment, the enure of appeal against the decisions of court of first instance is composed. According to this, if the decisions given by the penal chambers of the District Court of Justice are in favor of the defendant, the other defendants who have not been asked for appeal against the decisions of court of first instance are also entitled to benefit from the decisions, if they are applicable to. The Appeal Against Regional Courts Of Justice Period Is Extended;
● The request for appeal against regional courts of justice is extended from seven days to fifteen days so that the parties can exercise their appeal rights more effectively. Preliminary Examination ● The new arrangement allows to carried out the preliminary review by one member of court, thus aiming to make the District Court of Justice more efficient and productive.
● According to Article 345 of the Code Of Civil Procedure , the period of appeal against the decisions of court of first instance is two weeks but the period of appeal against regional courts of justice is one month according to
Article 361 of the same law. In order to ensure uniformity during the application, the period of appeal against the decisions of court of first instance and appeal against regional courts of justice have been changed to two weeks by the amendment.