Mediation Has Left Its Mark on Türkiye

Requirements for Entering the Mediation Profession

Nihat Şimşek, Member of the Mediation Board of the Ministry of Justice, attended a talk on ‘Advocacy and Mediation’ organised by the Faculty of Law of Erciyes University. Speaking at the talk held in the Süleyman Çetinsaya Faculty of Communication Conference Hall, Şimşek gave law students information about mediation, stating: “There are certain requirements for entering the profession of mediation. One must be a lawyer with at least 5 years of seniority.

In addition, mediation also has certain features that all lawyers regard as important. There is no seniority requirement in these features. It includes concepts that have recently been referred to as representation of parties in mediation, which I call mediation advocacy, and which abroad is described as negotiation advocacy. From the perspective of this profession, this will be indispensable for us in the future. Work is being carried out on having mediation taught as an elective course in higher education under the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) and subsequently making it a compulsory course. It is now considered unacceptable for lawyers, whether attorneys or judges, not to be familiar with this subject,” he said.

The names used in the talk for the same concept are as follows:

• Party representation in mediation
• Mediation advocacy
• Negotiating advocacy

Introduction of Mediation into Turkish Law

Recalling that mediation entered the legislation in Türkiye in 2012, Attorney-Mediator Nihat Şimşek, Member of the Ministry of Justice Mediation Board, said: “Mediation came in under the name of the Law on Mediation in Civil Disputes and began to be applied from June 2013. Before 2012 this subject was also on Türkiye’s agenda. In the training we received in 2007, there was also an assessment that mediation would enter our legislation. Mediation was a subject debated in Turkish law. Mediation is a system that is very widely applied around the world.

The sequence of development described in the talk is briefly as follows:

1. 2007Assessment in the training received that mediation would enter the legislation
2. 2012Entry into the legislation with the Law on Mediation in Civil Disputes
3. Haziran 2013Start of application
4. Son zamanlarComing onto the agenda as a precondition to litigation

Mediation, Conciliation and the Ombudsman

Mediation is an alternative dispute resolution method applied in private law disputes over which the parties can freely dispose.

Mediation is confused with conciliation and the ombudsman. The ombudsman is referred to as the public ombudsman system, and it is a system that comes into play in disputes between citizens and the public authorities where the citizen believes their rights have been violated. Conciliation, on the other hand, is a matter relating entirely to criminal law. It came into play in Türkiye in criminal law, particularly for offences prosecuted upon complaint, and is currently applied. Mediation, by contrast, is an alternative dispute resolution method that has come onto the agenda for disputes over which the parties can freely dispose, what we call private law, and that has recently also come onto the agenda as a precondition to litigation. Therefore, the 3 concepts differ from one another. In an environment where everyone agrees on the application of mediation, mediation is making its mark on the country”, he said. – KAYSERİ

Comparison of the three concepts