Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç told reporters on Sunday that they were weighing a family mediator system applied in other countries for the peaceful settlement of divorces.
Türkiye declared 2025 as “Family Year” in a bid to strengthen family bonds and promoting marriages to prevent a shrink due to its aging population. But divorces pose a challenge for the country as figures show that a slight but significant rise in divorces for 2024 compared to 2023. The number of divorces were 187,343 last year, according to official figures. Although divorces are amicable in most cases, some divorce proceedings drag due to disputes between spouses.
Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of an event in northern Türkiye’s Bartın, Tunç said they were preparing a new “judicial package” or an omnibus bill and were seeking input from experts to put the final touches before presenting it to Parliament for approval. Tunç said divorce cases should be separated from cases related to compensation and alimony and should be concluded faster. “When you have two separate lawsuits, one involving divorce and other about sharing of jointly owned properties and alimony, divorce proceedings tend to drag. Sometimes, they take 10 years and this prevents people from building new lives,” Tunç said.
The minister noted that they discussed it with experts, including judges of family courts and officials of higher courts. “We want to end the problems our citizens face in divorce proceedings,” he said.
Tunç said seeing a family mediator can be instrumental in helping the couples before the divorce cases. “This is applied in most European countries and Türkiye can implement a similar practice,” he said
“In some instances, lawyers encourage their plaintiffs to air severe complaints against their (soon-to-be-ex) spouses and this complicates a simple lawsuit filed due to less severe disputes between the sides. When faced those accusations, spouses believe they are at a point of no return. This also affects privacy of the couples before the court and hurts children,” he said.
“We believe that family mediation will help. It can help couples to settle on terms of divorce and will shorten the time of lawsuits. Moreover, it will help them to act more calmly even if they fail to come to terms with each other during the mediation period,” he added.
