The Amendments Introduced by the New Draft Law on Labor Courts

The long-awaited Law on Labor Courts ("Draft Law") has been drafted, approved by die Judicial Commission of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, and finally introduced to parliament, waiting to be enacted. The Draft Law contains numerous amendments and brings substantial changes to the current Law on Labor Courts No. 5521 ("LLC"). Mandatory mediation is inarguably one of the most remarkable and attention-grabbing reforms; however, it is not the only amendment that deserves notice and close examination.

The first article of the Draft Law stipulates that the purpose of the Draft Law is to regulate the organization, authorization, jurisdiction, and the procedural elements of the labor courts, and aims to revoke the first article of the LLC. The preamble of the Draft Law suggests that the necessity to ease the workload of labor courts in Turkey is a matter of paramount importance, which needs an immediate solution, considering that more than six hundred thousand labor