Full Compensation Case Due to Road Widening Works
The General Assembly of Civil Chambers examined the resisting decision and discussed the necessity after it was understood that the appeal was filed in due time and the papers in the file were read:
The lawsuit is related to the claim for the compensation of the damage caused to the plaintiff’s immovable property during the road widening works. The plaintiff’s attorney claimed that many fruit trees, ornamental plants, iron railings, concrete walls, iron gazebos and brick walls in the garden of his client’s immovable property were demolished and destroyed by the defendant administration without any notification, and demanded and sued for the collection of the material damage from the defendant. The defendant attorney defended the rejection of the lawsuit.
The court’s decision on partial acceptance of the lawsuit was reversed by the Special Chamber upon the appeal of the defendant’s attorney for the reasons explained above. The court decided to resist on the grounds relied on in the previous decision, and the decision to resist was appealed by the defendant’s attorney. The dispute before the General Assembly of Civil Chambers of the Court of Cassation centers on whether the damage caused by the defendant administration to the plaintiff’s immovable property was caused by the defendant administration’s activities within the scope of public service or based on a wrongful act, and whether the lawsuit petition should be rejected in terms of jurisdiction.
In terms of the solution of the dispute in the concrete case, it is useful to explain the concept of service defect.
Paragraph 1 of Article 125 titled “Judicial remedy” of the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey No. 2709 stipulates that “Judicial remedy is open against all kinds of actions and transactions of the administration” and the last paragraph stipulates that “The administration is obliged to pay the damages arising from its own actions and transactions”.
Two types of responsibility of the administration are recognized in administrative law. One is the private law liability arising from the contracts made by the administration in accordance with the principles of private law; the other is the type of liability specific to administrative law, which is formed in line with the principles of public law, arising from the contracts made by the administration in accordance with the principles of administrative law and all kinds of transactions and actions of the administration. The obligation of the administration to indemnify the damages caused to individuals is based on the “defect of service” and “faultless liability” of the administration. In practice, the fault-based liability of the administration is described by the concept of “defect of service”. Although it is difficult to provide a complete and comprehensive definition of service defect, it is generally defined in the doctrine as the occurrence of some defect, illegality, disorder, irregularity, deficiency, disability or negligence in the establishment, regulation or organization, structure, personnel or functioning of any public service that the administration is obliged to perform. The existence of a defect in service in three cases is accepted by both jurisprudence and doctrine. These three situations are the failure of the service to function at all, the late functioning of the service and the poor functioning of the service.
Accordingly, as a rule, the administration is obliged to compensate the damages that can be causally linked to the public service it performs, and in accordance with subparagraph “b” of paragraph 1 of Article 2 of the Administrative Procedure Law (İYUK) titled “Types of Administrative Lawsuits and the Limit of Administrative Jurisdiction”; “Those whose personal rights are directly affected due to administrative actions and transactions” can file a full court case in administrative jurisdiction. Again, in Article 15/I-a of the İYUK, it is also ruled that the lawsuits filed in matters where the judicial jurisdiction has jurisdiction shall be dismissed. As a matter of fact, the same principles were adopted in the decisions of the General Assembly of Civil Chambers dated 04.11.2015 and numbered 2014/17-731 Esas, 2015/2366 Decision; dated 04.11.2015 and numbered 2015/17-86 Esas, 2015/2364 Decision. When the concrete case is considered in the light of these general explanations; during the road widening works carried out by the defendant administration, the plaintiff’s immovable property was damaged, and this damage occurred due to the poor functioning of the service provided by the defendant administration (Court of Cassation HGK – Decision: 2016/426).
