Justice Minister Tunç: We have entered the era of artificial intelligence

Minister of Justice Yılmaz Tunç met with lawyers in Antalya as part of the "Century of Türkiye Meetings" program. Emphasizing the importance of the legal profession during the meeting, Minister Tunç stated that defense constitutes one of the three pillars of the judiciary, saying, "The legal profession constitutes one of the three pillars of the judiciary. Defense. A democratic state of law stands on three pillars."

Legislative, executive, and judicial. The legislature makes the laws. The executive carries out its practices within the framework of those laws. The judiciary resolves disputes. In other words, there is no democratic state of law when one of the three pillars is missing. One of these three pillars is the judiciary. The judiciary also stands on three pillars: prosecution, defense, and judgment. Therefore, without prosecution, without defense, and without judgment, if one is missing, there is no judiciary; when there is no judicial pillar, there is no democratic state of law."

Therefore, defense is one of the pillars of a democratic state of law. The right to defense is sacred, and our lawyers, who represent the defense, are founding elements of the judiciary, and the first article of our Law on Attorneyship states that the legal profession is both a freelance profession and a public service. It is also considered as performing a judicial duty in the sixth article of the Turkish Penal Code.

Therefore, our lawyers, just like judges and prosecutors, are indispensable to the judiciary. Consequently, the judiciary is indispensable to the state of law. For this reason, the place of our lawyers is undeniable, especially in a democratic state of law, and the more we improve the quality of the legal profession, the more the quality of the trial increases, the more our citizens' trust in justice increases, and the state of law is realized. Therefore, we attach importance to our colleagues," he said.

"264 TARGETS SET IN THE JUDICIAL REFORM STRATEGY DOCUMENT"

Noting that significant work has been done during the governments' terms to facilitate the work of lawyers and accelerate the judiciary, Tunç said, "These efforts are not only for our judges and prosecutors, but also for our lawyers. Therefore, together, hopefully, to carry the quality in the judiciary further and to bring the satisfaction of our citizens with judicial services to the highest point, prosecution, judgment, and defense are all pillars and columns that should be valued equally. Our judicial reform strategy document was announced on January 23. We have 264 targets in this document. After our President shared them with the public, we tied these targets to a calendar and are making an effort to realize them within this calendar. There are especially five main goals: strengthening institutional capacity, increasing human resource capacity, increasing the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, increasing the effectiveness of civil proceedings, and facilitating access to justice. We have set 264 targets in line with these five main goals. Among these targets, there are also headings that concern the defense," he stated.

"MEDIATION AND CONCILIATION SERVE SOCIAL PEACE"

Emphasizing that they take the demands of lawyers into account, Tunç recalled regulations such as the payment of legal aid allowances and the conduct of the conciliation institution solely by legal professionals. Pointing to the role of lawyers in mediation, Tunç said, "After mediation entered our legislation in 2013, it started voluntarily. Since 2018, it has continued its path as mandatory mediation as a condition for litigation in different types of cases at different times. So far, around 8 million disputes have come before mediation. Nearly 5 million of these have resulted in an agreement. Of course, the agreement rate in voluntary mediation is slightly higher, reaching 90 percent. In mandatory mediation, it is at the level of 40 percent, with an average of 65 percent. Here, mediation, especially what we call alternative dispute resolution methods such as arbitration, mediation, and conciliation in criminal matters, is a situation that both reduces the workload of the judiciary and, most importantly, serves social peace. The fact that our citizens resolve the disputes between them by shaking hands and making peace without being worn out during the litigation processes serves peace and social tranquility; conflicts cause unrest. Therefore, the contribution of our lawyers to mediation is important," he said.

"ADVANCED STEPS HAVE BEEN TAKEN"

Touching upon the history of judicial reforms, Minister Tunç stated the following:

"We announced the first judicial reform document in 2009, the second in 2015, the third in 2018, and the fourth at the beginning of 2025. We have taken advanced steps with each one. There were difficulties during this process. There were coup attempts, and a process of purging FETÖ took place. After 2016, young colleagues began their duties, replacing the judges and prosecutors who were dismissed from the profession. We established 139 new chambers to prevent backlogs in appellate courts. In places where the workload in first-instance courts increased, 2,500 new courts were created. Today, there are around 8,000 courts."

Drawing attention to the renewal and nationalization of laws, Tunç said, "During the AK Party governments, we have made great strides, especially in terms of developing legislation and achieving a legal framework that meets our needs. All of our fundamental laws have been changed. We have young colleagues here. They started their careers with new laws, but our experienced friends here started their profession with old laws, and later the laws were renewed. Those old laws of ours were adoptions. That is, they were taken from outside; they were translations. We reached the 2000s with laws we took from Switzerland, Germany, and France. During our governments in the 2000s, our fundamental laws were renewed with the contributions of our own academics, prepared by our own jurists, and approved by our parliament. Our laws have become nationalized. From the commercial code to the penal codes, from the code of obligations to procedural laws, all our fundamental laws were renewed during this period. And has this renewal process ended? No, it has not. Because needs evolve, technology develops, new types of crimes, cybercrimes, and population growth lead to different problems, and there are inevitably new needs for changes in existing laws. In this sense, when we visit courthouses, we tell our judges and prosecutors: 'If you realize or think that a law contradicts your conscience while applying it on the bench, and if you think, 'I wish it had been regulated this way' while applying it, you do not even need to claim unconstitutionality. Report it to us. The Ministry of Justice General Directorate of Legislation was established for this very purpose. We will work on it. We will make a request to our deputies. We will say that this law needs to be corrected in this way.' In other words, we have made them more compliant with the law without even waiting for Constitutional Court processes."

Stating that they can reach the Ministry of Justice directly to find solutions to the difficulties faced by lawyers, Tunç said, "We are open to all kinds of suggestions to ensure that laws are in accordance with the law. We expect opinions from our lawyer colleagues on this matter."

"THE ERA OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE JUDICIARY IS BEGINNING"

Addressing the issue of digitalization and artificial intelligence, Minister Tunç said the following:

"We have now entered the era of artificial intelligence. Many of our colleagues have started using AI. They are benefiting from systems that summarize pages of expert reports in a short time. We will also use AI in the judiciary as a support element. An Artificial Intelligence Branch Directorate has been established. We attach importance to the digitalization of the judiciary with systems developed by our national software engineers within the General Directorate of Information Technology. The decision-making authority in the judiciary will remain with judges, prosecutors, and lawyers, but AI will support clerical staff."