President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will introduce Türkiye’s new and fourth legal reform strategy document on Thursday, a move aimed at boosting timely facilitation of justice, according to the Justice Ministry on Wednesday.
The document, which acts as a roadmap for the four years from 2025 to 2029, has been prepared with the vision for a predictable justice system that will not be delayed and be based on the supremacy of the law, the ministry said in a statement.
The reform outlines five primary principles, including the strengthening of the corporate structure and the human resources capacity, restructuring of processes, increasing the effectiveness of the penal justice system and the legal and administrative trial processes, and making access to justice easier.
In total, the document branches out to 45 targets and 264 activities.
“With this document, we aim to increase faith in justice, ensure citizens benefit from legal services in the fairest and most effective way, their fundamental rights and freedoms are protected and the perception of impunity is eliminated,” the ministry said, stressing that a more reliable and accessible justice system would emerge.
Dozens of meetings chaired by Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç were held, which examined national and international legal developments and produced analyses based on legal statistics, according to the ministry.
While legal advisers abroad were asked to provide views and information on the practices of the countries they live in, over 65,000 citizens were surveyed via the ministry’s website for their input and suggestions.
Türkiye has unveiled the first of its legal reform strategy documents in 2009, followed by a second in 2015 and a third in 2019.
Other changes expected in the reform include revisions to prison sentences, probations, appeal processes and trial periods, as well as new regulations on traffic fines and artificial intelligence.
A new regulation will be introduced for the arrest measure for crimes with a prison sentence of no more than two years, in light of the collection of concrete evidence demonstrating strong criminal suspicion, the suspect’s inclination to crime, the threat of the crime disrupting public order and the method of committing the crime, according to Turkish media reports.
Instead of the one-year probation system, a fixed-rate probation system will be adopted.
Appeal and cassation reviews will be completed within six months at most while hearing times will be shortened and hearings can only be postponed for a maximum of two months.
A direct appeal system will be introduced for some disputes and the efficiency of the fight against cyber and telephone fraud crimes will be increased.
In order to prevent crimes, telephone subscriptions will be subject to strict rules through identity verification methods.
