According to statistics from the last 11 years, Justice Ministry inspectors handled only 2,180 of the 25,515 complaints about judges and prosecutors between 1999 and 2009, and the rest of the complaints were handled by senior judges and prosecutors.
In 2003, senior judges and prosecutors handled 3,103 investigations into judges and prosecutors while Justice Ministry inspectors handled only 208. The figures were similar in 2009, as senior judges and prosecutors handled 2,431 investigations into judges and prosecutors while Justice Ministry inspectors handled only 202. When there was a closure case against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in 2007, only 155 complaints were investigated by Justice Ministry officials compared to 2,204 complaints investigated by senior judges and prosecutors. Judges and prosecutors who are being investigated can also appeal the decisions of Justice Ministry inspectors. According to Justice Ministry statistics, judges and prosecutors who were being investigated filed 217 lawsuits in 2005-2009 against the ministry’s inspections.
The statistics also showed that the Justice Ministry did not launch an investigation into all of the complaints about judges and prosecutors. In 1999, the Justice Ministry did not start an inspection process for about 77 percent of the complaints, which totaled 1,636, while this figure was 47 percent in 2005 when the number of complaints reached 3,655. The number of complaints was 4,530 in the first 10 months of 2009, while the percentage of inspections remained at 47 percent. In 2007, the year the AK Party closure case occurred, 47 percent of 4,151 complaints about judges and prosecutors were not inspected. In 2005, a change in Article 97 of the Judges and Prosecutors Law made filing a complaint about judges and prosecutors harder in order to reduce pressure on those professionals.
