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THE OMBUDSMAN INSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF TÜRKİYE 2018 ANNUAL REPORT

good governance. In the long term, our Institution aims at playing effective role in creating a
public administration where the culture of seeking legal remedies is common and the quality
of provided services is high.
It is extremely important to raise awareness about our Institution and its activities. Accordingly,
in 2018, we attached particular importance to institutional communication activities to
reach large segments of the society through organizing numerous conferences, workshops,
provincial visits etc. with the participation of the students from primary schools, high schools,
universities as well as village headmen, and representatives of Civil Society Organizations.
Considering the fact that there are 206 universities and more than 7 million 500 thousand
students studying at these universities, we desire to reach these students in terms of raising
awareness and promoting the right to legal remedy, equity and justice and therefore, our
Institution supports the university students to create Ombudsman Student Associations/Clubs.
Currently, there are Ombudsman Student Associations within more than 60 universities and
many more will be created in the near future.

As part of raising awareness activities, we have organized working visits to some European
countries such as Germany, Belgium, Austria, France, Sweden etc. where the Turkish population
is the highest. There are more than 6 million Turkish citizens in European countries and 3
million of them live in Germany. Especially in recent years, racism, discrimination, Islamophobia
and xenophobia have increased resulting in many violent acts suffered by our Turkish citizens
abroad. In this regard, at the first stage, we come together with the representatives of the Civil
Society Organizations created by Turkish citizens living in the above-mentioned European
countries, and with the prominent persons inviting them to the Turkish Consulate General
in the relevant country. We listen to their problems, and inform them about the Ombudsman
Institutions, Human Rights Institutions and Anti-Discrimination Institutions functioning in
the country where they live. We provide guidance about how to apply to the Ombudsman and
seek legal remedies in the country where they live.

At the second stage of this activity, we pay visits to the Ombudsman, Head of Human Rights
Organization, relevant commission heads and members of the parliament of that country
conveying them the problems and unfair acts from which our citizens suffer. The biggest
problem that we have noticed is that our citizens don’t know their rights and where to apply if
their rights are violated. In this regard, our working visits to certain European countries have
yielded positive results in terms of protecting the rights of our citizens.

As you may notice in reading our Report, 2018 has been a record year for Recommendation
and Partial Recommendation decisions. While the total number of Recommendations, and
Partial Recommendation Partial Refusal decisions for the years 2013-2017 was 792, the total
number of these decisions has been 946 for the year 2018, which means that the total number

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