Equality of arms and adversarial trial principles in administrative jurisdiction

The right to a fair trial, which is guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, to which our country is a party, and the Constitution, encompasses the basic principles that must be complied with in terms of administrative jurisdiction procedures. The principles of equality of arms and adversarial trial are among the principles protected by the right to a fair trial. The principle of equality of arms ensures that an equal balance is achieved in terms of the rights and powers of the parties to the trial with regard to the procedures of the trial, and that both parties have reasonable opportunities to present their claims and defenses without being at a disadvantage compared to the other party. The principle of adversarial trial, on the other hand, is the principle of trial procedure, which can be defined as the parties being informed about and expressing opinions about all kinds of opinions and evidence submitted to the case file or included in the case file ex officio by the court in order to influence the court's decision. It is widely accepted in judicial opinions and doctrine that there is a very close relationship between these two principles and they even complement each other. Additionally, close relationship between these two principles become more prominent in terms of administrative jurisdiction procedures. Therefore, both of the principles are discussed together in this study. For a trial in accordance with the principles of equality of arms and adversarial trial, the administrative jurisdiction procedure must be comprehensively considered with its positive regulations and current situation in practice. While doing so, it is necessary to take into account the unique characteristics of the administrative jurisdiction and its aspects affected by the administrative law. In this study, it has been tried to examine the administrative jurisdiction in terms of equality of arms and adversarial trial together with the basic principles and current situation of the administrative jurisdiction in positive law and in practice.