After high infection and death rates, it was decided to enter into a full lockdown from 29 April to 17 May 2021 in Turkey.
This is the first full lockdown decision since the beginning of Turkey's battle with Covid-19. Regarding the new measures during the full lockdown, the general rule is to stay at home and work remotely except for essential shopping and urgent medical treatment. There are some exempted workers and sectors such as employees in the health sector, employees in the production and manufacturing sector, employees in the compulsory public sectors (airports, border gates, PTT-Turkish Post-), lawyers with judicial duties, notaries on duties, a limited number of bank employees, agricultural production workers, transport workers, press members, etc.
These individuals will be exempted from full lockdown, provided that they document that they are within the scope of the exemption and limited to the reason/route of exemption. It is clear that the full lockdown affects working life including judicial works. The Council of Judges and Prosecutors announced a decision regarding judicial works during the full lockdown on 27 April 2021. According to this decision, courthouses continue to remain open but non-urgent hearings, negotiations, on-site examinations are postponed until 17 May 2021. Only works and proceedings that can be considered urgent such as hearings and judicial works related to arrested individuals, the statute of limitations which will expire, precautionary attachments decisions, investigation and prosecution files with a close statute of limitations will not be postponed. However, it should be underlined that the legal time limits will continue to run. For this reason, it is necessary to pay attention to periods such as the response period and objection period during the full lockdown period.
Additionally, in order to prevent the loss of rights regarding enforcement and bankruptcy proceedings that may arise because of the full lockdown measures, there was a change of law and it is regulated that; (i) checks that the last submission date is between 30 April 2021 and 31 May 2021 cannot be submitted during this period; (ii) regarding the receivables based on commercial bills that become due between 30 April 2021 and 31 May 2021, no enforcement and bankruptcy proceedings will be initiated during this period, the ongoing enforcement and bankruptcy proceedings shall be suspended and no precautionary attachment decisions will be granted, (iii) no enforcement and bankruptcy proceedings will be initiated during this period regarding receivables of public administrations arising from public or private law within the scope of Public Financial Management and Control Law no. 5018.
Although full lockdown is planned as 17 days, this period may be extended according to the number of cases and the effects of full lockdown on business life. We will keep you informed of the developments.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
