Page 11 - On-merged

THE OMBUDSMAN INSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF TÜRKİYE

Another very important stakeholder is the press. In 2019, we gave a total of 55
interviews/press releases for agencies and newspapers and participated in live broadcasts
on TV and radio 29 times. Our Institution came together with media representatives
485 times in 2019. We came together with 500 local media representatives in total at
the provincial meetings. During our international visits, we came together with around
40 local media representatives. In 2019, 143 recommendations made by our Institution
appeared in news and the website of the Institution was visited 548.763 times in total.

In 2019, we organised the Animal Rights Workshop, Workshop on Religious Education
and the License Completion Program of Theology (İLİTAM), The Past, The Present
and The Future of The Ombudsman Workshop. We published the results of the Animal
Rights Workshop and The Past, The Present and The Future of The Ombudsman
Workshop.
Under the auspices of our President, H.E. Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, we organised
nd
the 2 İstanbul International Ombudsman Conference under the theme “Principles
of Good Administration”, which was attended by nearly 200 Ombudsmen and human
rights advocates from 60 countries.
As a result of these activities, the number of complaint applications filed to our
Institution reached 20.968 in 2019. The total number of complaint applications
since the establishment of the Institution is 80.535. The number of decisions
issued in 2019 is 21.170.
One of the most important aspects of our Institution is that we resolve complaints
through amicable settlement in a short period of time. By serving as a bridge of
reconciliation between the administration and the citizen, our Institution resolves the
problems without the need for a recommendation and contributes to providing the
citizens with “easy access to justice”. In this context, we resolved 2.707 complaints
through amicable settlement in a short period of time in 2019.
One of the biggest weaknesses of the Ombudsman Institutions in the world is the
failure to receive eligible applications. As a result of the activities we have carried out,
we have made significant progress in terms of the number of eligible applications as
well as the number of complaints. The increase in the number of eligible applications
facilitates the amicable settlement of complaints and is also reflected in the number
of recommendation decisions. As a matter of fact, our Institution issued 792
recommendation decisions during the 5-year period between 2013 and 2017 whereas in
2018, 946 recommendation decisions were issued, which is more than the total number
of decisions issued in the last 5 years. There was a considerable increase in the number
of recommendations made in 2019 and this number reached 1.270.

10 2019 ANNUAL REPORT