The legal clock of a request: 30 days, 15 working days, and the cost of every hand-off

Article 7 of the Law on the Exercise of the Right to Petition (No. 3071) is clear: applicants — Turkish citizens and, subject to reciprocity and to the petition being written in Turkish, foreigners residing in Türkiye — receive a reasoned reply on the outcome, or on the progress of the ongoing process, within thirty days at the latest. If progress is reported, the final outcome is communicated separately.

Article 11 of the Right to Information Law (No. 4982) requires access to information or documents within fifteen working days. If the information must come from another unit within the institution, needs another institution’s opinion, or concerns more than one institution, the period is thirty working days; in that case the applicant must be notified in writing of the extension and its reason within the fifteen working days.

The law itself recognises the cost of a hand-off: if the information has to go to another unit or institution, the period doubles. It accepts that hand-offs happen, but writes down their price.

In practice, a hand-off usually means rewriting. As a request moves from channel to desk, desk to department, department to field crew, it gets a little shorter and a little different at every stop.

The law provides not only for the outcome but for reporting progress. That is exactly what residents ask the second time they call: what happened to my request? If answering means comparing several ledgers, the person on the phone knows as little as the resident.

In our view the answer is not fewer channels but connecting every channel to the same record. Wherever a request comes from, it is written down once, everything after happens on that record, and where the legal time was spent becomes visible.

• This article is not legal advice and does not replace your legal team’s assessment.
• A single record does not mean every request goes to the same department.