Page 61 - 2021-Yillik-Rapor-Ingilizce

THE OMBUDSMAN INSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF TÜRKİYE

a call centre, information requests of 125.028 persons in total were responded, which
include:

➢ Phone calls including outgoing and incoming calls,
➢ Information requests through e-mails submitted to our Institution,
➢ Applications for information filed within the framework of the Law on the Right to
Information No. 4982, and

➢ Face to face meetings with citizens who came to our Institution and our Istanbul
Bureau in person as well as face to face meetings within the scope of the Regional
Meetings on “the Ombudsman Institution Meets with the Public”, provincial
working visits, meetings with primary schools and high schools, university
conferences, video conferences and live broadcasts on social media, and meetings on
spreading the culture of seeking legal remedies in the international arena.
As a result of the examination and investigation conducted by our Institution, we
contributed directly to the reduction of the workload of the courts with the help of our
6.084 amicable settlement decisions, decisions of refusal, recommendation decisions,
and legal aid, as well as helping the improvement of the quality of public services and
the formation of a transparent, accountable, and human-oriented administration. As a
result of all these, the Ombudsman Institution has become a means of supervising the
public institutions and organisations for the citizens through the complaints it examines,
and it has enabled the participation of citizens in the government administration,
especially local administrations, apart from the elections taking place once in every
five years; thereby, as a tool of direct democracy, our Institution contributed to the
strengthening of democracy in our country.
One of the most important aspects that differentiate our Institution from other
supervision mechanisms is that while examining the applications, it also detects the
problem areas in practice and the unlawfulness in the legislation, and in this way, it can
issue recommendations to amend a legislation in order to prevent possible unlawful
practices, violations of rights, or unfair practices. At this point, the objective of the
Institution is to prevent violations of the individual law and violations of justice, as well
as preventing violations against individuals who are experiencing a similar situation.
In this respect, the decisions issued as a result of the examination conducted by our
Institution do not only affect the applicant, but they also affect tens of thousands or
even hundreds of thousands of people who are experiencing a similar situation.
In this context, the Institution sometimes issues decisions that affect a particular
occupational group, an entire province or hundreds of thousands of people who are
victimised by the same situation. For instance;

2021 ANNUAL REPORT 57