Navigating Legal Avenues: the Complex Landscape of Disaster Accountability in Turkey

Abstract

As an increasing number of citizens are turning to administrative courts to seek remedies and address deficiencies in disaster management, disaster trials in Turkey emerge as critical sites for exploring the law's potential and limitations in fostering disaster justice. In this article, I examine two significant flood-related disasters and the role of "legal technicalities" in advancing disaster justice within the administrative courts of Turkey. The precedent-setting rulings of these cases challenged the disaster management system, which functions through a paternalistic framework. This framework defines the state's involvement in disasters as providing post-disaster aid to victims and survivors rather than prioritizing risk mitigation and prevention. By focusing on the accounts of lawyers as the "legal engineers" who mediate between the experiences of survivors and the legal technicalities, I aim first to provide insights into the evolving dynamics between citizens and state institutions concerning disaster accountability in Turkey. Second, I endeavor to contribute to socio-legal scholarship by employing "legal technicalities" as an analytical framework to investigate how disaster victims and their legal representatives navigate complex bureaucratic and procedural challenges in their efforts to reshape the parameters of disaster accountability.