The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is drafting a new omnibus bill as part of the 4th Judicial Reform Strategy Document recently introduced by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The “First Judicial Package,” as it is tentatively called, aims to end the perception of impunity in the country where several court verdicts for homicides and similar crimes raised a public outcry last year.
Last month, Erdoğan made public the document covering the years between 2025 and 2029 and includes five goals, 45 targets and 264 activities. The AK Party’s parliamentary group chair, Abdullah Güler, will lead a delegation of lawmakers who will work on the draft bill.
The bill includes regulations involving mandatory incarceration for offenses carrying a prison term of two years and below or mandatory community service. The bill will be presented to the Turkish Parliament’s general assembly for approval after debates at the Parliament’s Justice Committee.
The document for reform strategy has been prepared with the vision for a predictable justice system that will not be delayed and is based on the supremacy of the law, the Justice Ministry said in a statement last month.
The reform outlines principles that include strengthening the corporate structure and the human resources capacity, restructuring processes, increasing the effectiveness of the penal justice system and the legal and administrative trial processes, and making access to justice easier.
“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, examining national and international legal developments and producing 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 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 and 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. To prevent crimes, telephone subscriptions will be subject to strict rules through identity verification methods.
