Judicial overload clogs system, judges want no change

According to reports from the Justice Ministry, the number of such cases that are simply dropped due to time running out is 486,000 annually. The overload is accompanied by an acute shortage of judges, prosecutors and other judicial personnel.

However, the strongest resistance to appointing new judges comes from higher judicial bodies, which also oppose the establishment of appellate courts that could lighten the burden of the higher appeals courts. Every year, members of the higher judiciary complain about judicial impartiality and their salaries but never offer any alternatives for speeding up trial processes so that justice can be served in a timely manner. They also consistently oppose suggestions from the government on judicial reform.

In the European Union, one judge per every 5,000 citizens is the average while that figure is 12,000 in Turkey, where a judge hears 1,078 cases on average; this number is around 300 in EU nations. In the past decade, the workload of Turkish judges and prosecutors has increased by more than 100 percent.

Turkey currently has spots for 14,697 judges and prosecutors. However, 3,796 spots remain vacant. The Justice Ministry held two tests in the past two years to close the gap. However, the Council of State – which ruled that orals for the applicants should be filmed on camera -- is resisting the integration of new judges and prosecutors. A judge on average needs two-and-a-half years before he or she can actively start doing his or her job after succeeding in the examination. One examination by which one thousand judges and prosecutors would be appointed is currently the subject of an ongoing trial.

According to statistics from the Justice Ministry, the processing time for the average case brought to a public prosecutor is 447 days. It takes 120 days for the Supreme Court of Appeals Penal Council to hear a case, while that number is 388 days at the Council of State.

In the past 10 years, the overload of the Supreme Court of Appeals Prosecutor’s Office has risen by 23 percent. There are currently more than 1 million files waiting to be processed at the Supreme Court of Appeals.

The number of days it might take a prosecutor to examine a petition might increase to 619 days for juvenile courts. The earliest a case can be completed in a debt recovery case is 634 days.

As of August 2010, there are 5,444,037 cases waiting to be processed by prosecutors. The number of files waiting to be processed in criminal courts is 3,058,701, while that number is 2,397,875 in civil courts.

The overload takes a toll on justice. According to the Justice Ministry, 238,695 unsolved murder cases were dropped due to the statute of limitations expiring. In any given year, an average of 486,000 court cases are dropped due to the statute of limitations expiring. The time expiration is now seen as a safe haven for those who try to escape justice. The statute of limitations for a case under Turkish law might change from seven to 12 years depending on the nature of the case. Military officers, police officers and bureaucrats are the most frequent beneficiaries of the statute of limitations.

The murder case of Confederation of Revolutionary Workers’ Unions (DİSK) leader Kemal Türkler and the assassination of journalist Uğur Mumcu were cases that had to be dropped due to the statute of limitations running out.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has a large number of cases against Turkey in which it ruled that the country deprives its citizens of the right to a fair trial due to the heavy workload of its courts. As of 2009, the ECtHR  had ruled against Turkey in 2,295 fair trial violations. A majority of the applicants in 2010 taking a country to court for alleged violations of the right to a fair trial are from Turkey, which follows Russia as the second most frequently sued country at the ECtHR.

Personnel needed

The Justice Ministry currently needs 6,911 judges and prosecutors. There are 5,342 courts in Turkey, but the ministry is having a difficult time finding recruits.

In a related attempt to lighten the workload of the judiciary, the Justice Ministry proposed setting up nine appellate courts in 2005. However, all higher judicial bodies and particularly the Supreme Court of Appeals have opposed this. It will be a long time before the system can start to work effectively, as a major change of mentality in the judiciary is needed for that to happen.