Refugee Rights Turkey launches a new Legal Opinion Paper on problems encountered by asylum seekers in Turkey in notarizing a power of attorney to authorize lawyer to represent them and recommendations to key stakeholders. The Paper is made available in Turkish and English.

In Turkey, nationals as well as foreigners have to notarize a power of attorney in order to authorize lawyers to represent them in legal proceedings. In current practice, asylum seekers encounter difficulties in authorizing lawyers because of an ongoing reluctance on the part of notaries to admit asylum documents as proof of identity. The ongoing hurdles experienced by asylum seekers and other vulnerable migrants in notarization of power of attorneys undermine the effectiveness of new remedies provided by Turkey’s new Law on Foreigners and International Protection. The crux of the problem has to do with the new asylum terminology adopted by the new Law and the new set of identity documents issued to various categories of asylum seekers in Turkey depending on their status in the procedures. The notaries in Turkey have found it difficult to accept and process these new types of asylum identity documents as valid identity documents for the purpose of notarization of power of attorneys. The problems affect both Syrian and non-Syrian protection seekers in Turkey.

Our new Legal Opinion Paper can be accessed online via the Publications section of our website.