Certain amendments have been made to the Regulation in order to accelerate and simplify judicial processes and to ensure more effective use of technology in filing procedures.

     Additionally, following the European Court of Human Rights’ KV Mediterranean judgment, it became necessary to introduce changes to prevent delays occurring in the filing statements of defence and the scheduling of hearing dates by the Supreme Court.

     With the published amendment:

• A Default Application filed for the submission of a defence may be granted at most four times, and each adjournment may not exceed 45 days.
• Upon application, the scheduling of a hearing date must be completed within 30 days at the latest.
• Lawyers are now allowed to file documents using electronic signatures.
• The limit under Order 65 has been increased to 100,000 TL, and the rules on case management have been raised to 2,000,000 TL.
• Amendments have been made to allow applications filed with Affidavits to be filed electronically.
• The number of staff positions has been increased.

With this amendment, which marks the beginning of filing Affidavits electronically, an important step has been taken toward enabling all filings to be made electronically. Once the software is completed, applications, especially those regarding instalments, imprisonment, and enforcement, will begin to be filed electronically. The Supreme Court’s Information Technologies Centre has recently launched a system allowing the electronic filing of Statements of Claim, Statements of Defence, and Replies to Defence in High Administrative Court cases. Likewise, Statements of Claim in family cases and civil appeals to the Court of Appeal have also been made electronically fileable.

Ongoing software developments for the electronic filing system, planned to be implemented soon, include:

1. Filing of lawyer changes electronically,
2. Filing Statements of Defence and Reply to Defence pleadings in family cases,
3. Electronic filing of Instalment–Imprisonment–Enforcement applications,
4. Conducting all cases via electronic files accessible on the interface designed for judges and lawyers in the courtroom using computers or technological devices,
5. Serving processes using tablets, with service records instantly uploaded to the Electronic Filing System (EDS).

     The Courts, which currently provide the most extensive electronic services in the public sector in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, aim to further expand this service network through the projects currently underway.