Administration's discretionary power in public procurement operations

Public Procurement Law, numbered 4734, is a procedural law which arranges public procurement operations. It hasn?t been that the administration is given the freedom to choose the opposite party of the contract which is to be carried out as a result of the public procurement before making a public expenditure. On the contrary, the administration is put under an obligation in determining the opposite party of the contract in the area of procurement. At that point, since public procurements are technical issues, a necessity to grant the administration with discretionary power has emerged.Public Procurement Law No. 4734, is being criticized on the basis that it is difficult to determine the areas in which the administration has been granted discretionary power and that limitations of the discretionary power are uncertain. The fact that the regulations concerning the discretionary power of the administration in the area of public procurement operations are scattered throughout the Law, also hinders to provide a systematic approach to this area.At the core of this study, the new public procurement system established in Turkey is examined especially within the framework Public Procurement Law No. 4734; within this framework, the topics which are left in administration?s discretion are determined and the limitations of this discretionary power are put forth for consideration. Accordingly, at the first part of the study, the administrative acts during the preparation phase of procurement were determined. At the second, part the areas that are left to discretion of the administration are explained. The aforementioned examination is carried out with Public Procurement Authority?s decisions concerning procurement operations done with administration?s discretionary power. The Public Procurement Authority decisions which have been subject of the State Council?s examination were also guidelines to determine the limitations of the administration?s discretionary power.