More people seek mediation in legal cases

Oya Armutçu – ANKARA

There has been a boom in the practice of mediation that commenced four years ago and will become necessary in labor disputes after the approval of a draft bill sent to the parliament.

Mediators rather than courts, have solved 11,145 disputes in the first eight months of 2017. It is remarkable that labor disputes have taken first place before mediation has become mandatory. The success rate of mediation is 91 percent.

Hakan Öztatar, head of the Mediation Department at the Ministry of Justice, revealed to Hürriyet that the legislation which would necessitate mediation in labor disputes to be enacted in October. Öztatar noted that all the preparations for the implementation of the legislation are complete.

“With the enforcement of mandatory mediation in labor disputes, approximately 400,000 files will be taken care of by mediators. Mandatory mediation will reduce the labor lawsuits that take 434 days to a single day or less. Furthermore, this legislation is also crucial for the 17 million employees and 1.5 million employers, because it will help society improve its culture of reconciliation and contribute to the peace between employees and employers. The total number of mediators is 13,446. The new legislation will make this number increase and provide employment opportunities,” he said.

The disputes solved through mediation in 2017 have doubled the sum of the disputes solved through mediation in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. Some 11,145 disputes have been solved through mediation up to August 2017. In this regard, 2017 is a booming year for mediation. Until today, 16,630 disputes have been negotiated and 15,141 have resulted in a deal—some 1,489 of the negotiations have not reached an agreement. 

In terms of the subject matter for mediation, labor disputes took first place, comprising 90 percent of all the practices of mediation with 14,909 negotiations. Material and moral compensation were in second place with 334 practices, intellectual and industrial property rights were third with 266 practices, and debt disputes were fourth with 236 practices. The subject matter for which mediators were sought the least, on the other hand, were sports and neighborhood law. Only one practice of mediation for sports and two practices for neighborhood were carried out.