ABSTRACT
As part of the continental European legal family, Turkey has a separated judicial system. For administrative law disputes, the administrative judiciary has jurisdiction, whereas for civil law disputes there are civil courts established. This jurisdictional separation leads to some problems in defining the competent authority, especially as jurisdiction is changed by the legislature for different reasons. One of the recent changes was related to claims of compensation arising from personal injuries and death. With the enaction of the new Civil Procedure Code, civil courts gained jurisdiction for all such cases, including the ones related to administrative law. Also, the new Code of Obligations included a provision under which civil law would be substantially applicable to these cases, as it was assumed that it would be applied by the civil courts. However, the provision of the Civil Procedure Code was annulled by the Turkish Constitutional Court in 2012, and as a result, the administrative judiciary gained jurisdiction over these cases. Meanwhile, the provision of the Code of Obligations is still in effect. The main purpose of the chapter is to analyse this legal situation in Turkey with its historical background.
