I. Introduction
Since 1 January 2018, employment claims in Turkey, whether for employee or employer receivables and compensation or for reinstatement, can be brought to court only after an application to a mediator. If the court finds that no mediation application was made, it dismisses the action on procedural grounds without examining the merits. Whether a particular claim, most notably reinstatement, was actually raised in mediation is therefore a threshold question. Courts answer it by looking at the mediation application form and the final record of the mediation.
In its decision of 3 March 2026 in application no. 2022/82055, published in the Official Gazette of 21 September 2026, the Constitutional Court considered a case in which these two documents pointed in different directions. The reinstatement option had not been ticked on the application form, but reinstatement appeared in abbreviated form among the matters listed in the final record, and the related financial claims had been made in both documents. The regional court of appeal relied on the unticked box and dismissed the action. The Constitutional Court accepted that requiring mediation before litigation has a legal basis and a legitimate aim, but unanimously held that the requirement had been applied in an excessively formalistic way, in violation of the employee’s right of access to a court under Article 36 of the Constitution.
II. Mediation Applications and Final Records in Practice
A mediation application may be made by petition, by completing a form at the mediation office, or electronically. The office form lists standard claim types, such as unpaid wages, overtime, severance pay and reinstatement, which the applicant ticks. At the end of the process the mediator issues a final record. Under Law No. 6325 on Mediation in Civil Disputes, the record documents that the parties could not agree, and the parties themselves decide what else it will contain. In practice, its content is shaped by the statements of whichever party attends.
The Court of Cassation reads these documents strictly. For applications made before the form system was introduced on 2 June 2018, it treated a general reference such as “employment receivables” as covering all such claims. For later applications, a final record that does not state which specific claims were or were not settled does not prove that the mediation requirement was met. How a claim is ticked on the form and worded in the record can therefore decide whether the court will hear it at all.
III. The Dispute
The applicant worked as a private security officer for a security company acting as a subcontractor, and that company terminated the employment contract. On 18 February 2020 the applicant applied to the İzmir mediation office against both the subcontractor and the principal employer. The reinstatement box was not ticked. The claims listed did, however, include wages for the period out of work and compensation for non-reinstatement, which under Turkish law are the financial consequences of a successful reinstatement claim. The employers did not attend the first session on 24 February 2020, and the final record issued that day stated that no agreement had been reached because the other side was absent. The form’s list also included a pre-printed item for seafarers’ board allowance (“g. adamı iaşe b.”). In the final record, the applicant’s lawyer repeated the form’s items in the same order, but in place of that item the record read “g. adamı işe iade b.”, which contains the Turkish term for reinstatement (“işe iade”).
The İzmir 11th Labour Court held the termination invalid, ordered reinstatement, and set the compensation for non-reinstatement and up to four months’ wages for the period out of work. On appeal by the principal employer and the subcontractor, the 15th Civil Chamber of the İzmir Regional Court of Appeal set that judgment aside and dismissed the action, with final effect, for failure to satisfy the mediation requirement. It held that reinstatement had not been mediated because the box was unticked. It also read the abbreviated entry as the form’s item for seafarers (“g. adamı iaşe b.”), noting that the applicant was not a seafarer.
IV. The Constitutional Court’s Assessment
The Court treated the procedural dismissal, which prevented any examination of the merits, as an interference with the right of access to a court. The interference had a legal basis in Article 3 of Labour Courts Law No. 7036 and served the legitimate aim of resolving employment disputes more quickly and cheaply without litigation, so the case turned on proportionality.
On that question, the Court stressed that the statutory obligation is limited to applying to a mediator, and that the way the process runs and ends is for the parties to decide. The final record is drawn up on the basis of the parties’ statements, and a signed record showing that the parties could not agree on reinstatement is proof that the mediation requirement was met for that claim. The Court did not separately address the regional court’s reading of the entry. It treated the statement in the final record as expressing the applicant’s intention to put reinstatement on the table, noting that reinstatement appeared there, albeit in abbreviated form, as one of the matters raised, and the applicant had also claimed compensation for non-reinstatement and wages for the period out of work. On those facts, the Court found that it could not be said that reinstatement had been left out of the mediation.
The Court described the regional court’s reading as strict and found that it placed a heavy burden on the applicant, out of proportion to the aim of the mediation requirement. It ordered a retrial and sent its decision to the İzmir 11th Labour Court for transmission to the regional court of appeal. It rejected the applicant’s claim for compensation, considering the retrial sufficient redress, and stressed that its finding implies nothing about the outcome of the reinstatement action itself.
V. General Assessment
The decision expects courts deciding whether a claim went through mediation to read the application form, the final record and the claims recorded in them together, rather than relying on a single entry. The decision does not mean that a claim missing from every mediation record can be treated as mediated.
The practical stakes are high because the time limits are short. Under Article 20 of Labour Law No. 4857, a worker must apply to mediation within one month of being notified of the termination, so a procedural dismissal at the appeal stage usually comes too late for a fresh application and ends the claim. Employees’ counsel should tick the reinstatement box and make sure the final record states the reinstatement claim in full, without abbreviation, together with the related financial claims. Employers should note that if they do not attend, the record will reflect only the employee’s statements. Attending in person or through an authorised representative is the only way to check that the record describes the dispute accurately. A party raising a mediation objection should base it on the mediation file as a whole, not on a single field of the form.
