The Constitutional Court (“Court”)
invalidated the “Subject matter exceeds one
hundred thousand Turkish liras” section of the
1st paragraph of Article 3 of
Administrative Procedural Law No. 2577
(“Law”), ruling it contrary to Art. 13 and
36 of the Constitution and the rest of the
provision due to paragraph (4) of Art. 43
of Law No. 6216 on the Establishment and
Rules of Procedures of the Constitutional
Court.

As regards the cases worth below the
amount in question, this rule imposes a
limitation on the right to request a review
of the court decision, since it prevents the regional administrative court from being
able to appeal against its decisions on the
merits of the case by annulling the decision
of the first instance court.

As the monetary limit subject to the rule is
updated every year, it may be applied in
different ways at different stages as of the
date of the action or acts, the date of
application to the administration, the date
of the lawsuit, the date of the decision of
the court of first instance or the date of the
decision of the appellate authority. In
addition, there is no provision in the laws
regulating legal remedies in administrative
proceedings as to which of these dates will
be considered when determining the valid
monetary limit for appealing against
regional administrative court decisions.
Thus, a decision that was previously
subject to appeal due to trial processes may
become final as of the decision date of the
regional administrative court.

In this context, as the monetary limit for
which decisions subject to appeal is
updated yearly, the law must be regulated
in a clear and predictable manner as to the
date on which the appeal can be filed,
according to the monetary limit. In this
respect, since the rule does not clearly
regulate the date on which the monetary
limit will be applied in terms of appeal and
in a way that does not leave room for
hesitation, the rule does not meet the
requirement of legality. The rule is contrary
to the requirement that rights and
freedoms be limited by law, as regulated in
Article 13 of the Constitution.

According to the Court, the provision is
further contrary to the proportionality
principle in Art. 13 of the Constitution.
Although the finality of the decisions given
in some cases that may be considered
unimportant in terms of procedural economy and the principles of trial within
a reasonable time does not constitute a
contradiction with the right to request the
review of the decision (AYM, E.2022/135,
K.2023/30, 16/2/2023, § 35), if the
administrative court appeal accepts the
appeal and annul the decision of the first
instance court and give a decision on the
merits of the case, the inability to appeal
against this decision may be contrary to the
right to review the decision. It cannot be
said that the disputes whose subject matter
is above the appeal limit but below five
hundred eighty one thousand Turkish liras
are entirely insignificant from the monetary
standpoint.

In this regard, in case of a tax, full judgment
or annulment case, which cannot be
considered insignificant in terms of its
amount, if a decision is made against the
plaintiff by the regional administrative
court for the first time, the inability to
review this decision due to the rule imposes
an excessive burden on the people, and the
plaintiffs have the right to request the
review of the decision in order to reduce
the workload of the Council of State. The
balance between their interests in using it is
disturbed against the plaintiffs. For this
reason, the inability to appeal against the
decision of the regional administrative
court, which ruled against the plaintiffs for
the first time in all tax cases, full
jurisdiction cases and cases arising from
administrative procedures, the subject
matter of which is less than five hundred
eighty one thousand Turkish liras, imposes
a disproportionate limitation on the right
to request the review of the decision.

The Constitutional Court also invalidated
the remaining part of the clause in
accordance with the paragraph (4) of
Article 43 of the Law No. 6216 on the
Establishment and Rules of Procedures of
the Constitutional Court, as the remaining

part of the clause remained irrelevant due
to the validation of the section of “subject
matter exceeding one hundred thousand Turkish
Liras”.

The validation judgment will enter into
force 9 months after 13/10/2023, the date
of its publication in the Official Gazette.