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THE OMBUDSMAN INSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF TÜRKİYE

has been made in improving the ability to resolve disputes by raising the awareness of
the general public as well as of the administrations about the Institution. The number
of complaints that are received annually has exceeded 20.000 thanks to the increasing
recognition of the Institution. Our Institution serves as a public advocate and guides
the administration through its recommendations in a sense of responsibility towards the
public and on the basis of fairness.

In this context, we have left behind the very busy year of 2019, in which we organised
many activities with the purpose of strengthening the culture of seeking legal remedies,
made recommendations, prepared and published special reports and studies and held
international symposiums and workshops.

In 2019, we increased the number of Ombudsman Student Clubs established in
universities to 100. In addition, we held conferences at 32 universities under the theme
“Justice, Equity and Ombudsman” and we conducted internship programs with 3
universities at our Institution. In order to promote the culture of seeking legal remedies
among high school students, we organised painting, essay-writing and poster contests
with the theme “Principles of Good Administration” among high school students in
Istanbul.

We continued to hold provincial meetings in 2019, where we brought together citizens,
CSOs, local authorities, opinion leaders and administrators of the relevant province.

With the purpose of promoting the culture of legal remedies among our citizens living
in Europe, the Institution has organised visits to certain European countries such as
Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands. We came together with local CSOs
and press members and informed them about the ways of seeking legal remedies.

We participated in Ombudsman network meetings with Ombudsman Institutions in 17
countries. We had reciprocal visits with the ambassadors of 26 countries, representatives
of Ombudsman Institutions and Human Rights Institutions. We have increased the
number of Ombudsman associations, of which our Institution is a member, to 8. In
addition, as the Ombudsman Institution, we were elected as a board member of the
Asian Ombudsman Association. Our Institution was also elected as the President of the
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Ombudsman Association.

Our Institution attaches great importance to establishing communication and
cooperation with civil society organisations (CSOs) and we consider CSOs to be a very
important stakeholder. As a result of our activities organised abroad in 2019, we came
together with about 60 representatives of Turkish CSOs abroad, and 600 representatives
from local CSOs within the scope of provincial meetings we held in Türkiye.

2019 ANNUAL REPORT 9