TURKEY | Chief Ombudsman of Turkey re-elected to the post

Mr. Şeref Malkoç has been re-elected as Chief Ombudsman of Turkey by the General Assembly of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on 11 November 2020. Mr Malkoç, a 60-year-old prominent lawyer and former member of the Parliament, was sworn in on the 1 December 2020 at the Parliament. Performing this duty since 05 December 2016, Mr. Malkoç’s new mandate will be for another four years until 2024. 

During his first 4-year tenure, the Turkish Ombudsman Institution took very significant steps toward becoming an effective and professional Institution. Since Mr. Malkoç took office, the Institution has been improved every year. For example, the complaint number, which was only 5,519 in 2016, reached almost 90.000 in 2020. This figure is as many as five times the complaint received in 2019.

With the increase in the number of qualified applications, the number of recommendations has increased significantly. The number of recommendations, which was 1,270 in 2019, is 68,577 for 2020. Thanks to the increase in the recognition of our institution and the institutional works carried out, the compliance rate with the recommendations has increased from 42% in 2016 to 76.5% in 2020, and more than 8.000 complaints have been resolved in the last three years.

Under Malkoç’s leadership, the Institution carried out many outreach programs regarding to the promotion of the Institution. Mr. Malkoç personally attended more than 30 regional meetings in many parts of Anatolia. He held many meetings/workshops with NGO’s, institutions and organizations representing different sectors from women’s rights to the animal rights group. He gave 70 conferences at the universities. Because of those conferences, more than 100 universities have established ombudsman student clubs. The Institution also organized poster and art competitions about human rights among high school students. The media was a very big part of Mr Malkoç’s first term as well. In order to increase the visibility of the Institution, he gave hundreds of interviews in the print and other media organizations. Thus, the Institution is very visible on Turkish media as well as social media. Also, the Institution has published three important special reports: Syrians in Turkey, Manual on Good Administration Principles and Turkey’s Fight Against Covid-19 Pandemic.

Chief Ombudsman of Turkey Mr. Şeref Malkoç has been the President of the Organization of Islamic Countries’ Ombudsman Association (OIOCA) and the Member of the Board of Directors of Asian Ombudsman Association (AOA) since November 2019.  

Source: Office of the Ombudsman, Turkey