30.10.2026 17:30
The Constitutional Court has delivered an important ruling concerning enforcement proceedings initiated due to underpayment of civil servant salaries in past years. In the case in which deficiencies in civil servant salary payments were brought before the judiciary, the courts’ decisions on the grounds of time-bar were deemed a violation of rights.
The Constitutional Court (AYM) found unconstitutional the rejection, on the ground that they were time-barred, of the cases filed in administrative jurisdiction by civil servants working at a municipality that was closed, after the execution proceedings without a judgment they had initiated to collect unpaid salary and interest receivables were dismissed by a Decree-Law (KHK). The High Court ruled that the decisions violated the civil servants’ “right of access to a court” guaranteed by Article 36 of the Constitution.
ENFORCEMENT PROCEEDINGS WERE INITIATED FOR UNDERPAID SALARIES
According to the decision published in the Official Gazette, the process began with the execution proceedings without a judgment initiated in 2014 by certain civil servants who worked between 2002 and 2014 at Çalış Municipality in the Haymana district of Ankara, whose legal personality was abolished, for unpaid salary and interest receivables.
While the execution proceedings were ongoing, the municipality’s legal personality was abolished; all its movable and immovable property, receivables and debts were transferred to the Haymana Municipality Mayor’s Office. Following the transfer, the Haymana Enforcement Office registered Haymana Municipality as debtor and notified that the debts had to be paid.
ENFORCEMENT PROCEEDINGS WERE DISMISSED BY DECREE-LAW
However, upon the municipality’s objection, the enforcement office decided, under Decree-Law No. 694, which entered into force after the judicial process initiated by the civil servants, that the execution proceedings be dismissed. Following the dismissal of the execution proceedings, the aggrieved civil servants filed cases before the administrative court in order to collect their receivables. The administrative courts, however, accepted the dates on which the applicants initiated execution proceedings as the date of application to the administration. In the assessment, it was decided that receivables requested within the time limit according to this date be paid; and that the cases filed for receivables alleged not to have been requested within the time limit be rejected on the ground that they were “time-barred”. Upon finalization of the decisions, the civil servants made an individual application to the AYM alleging a violation of rights.
REASONING OF THE DECISION
The Constitutional Court, examining the application, noted that the strict and unforeseeable attitude of the administrative courts led to a violation of rights and made the following assessment: “In the decision, it was understood that in the court’s interpretation concerning the time limit, it was not taken into account that, before the decree-law regulations, execution proceedings without a judgment could also be pursued for receivables falling within the subject matter of administrative jurisdiction, and that in the concrete case, as no objection was made to the debt, the proceedings became final and progressed to the seizure stage. It was stated that the administrative courts’ unforeseeable interpretation regarding the determination of the date on which the time limit for filing a case began constituted a strict interpretation with respect to the right of access to a court, and that this caused a heavy burden on the applicants. In conclusion, it was considered that the interference with the applicants’ right of access to a court was disproportionate.”