Inconsistency in conciliation paymentsAn untransparent arbitrary system was likely to produce inconsistent results, and has done so. A lawyer from the Bingöl bar gave the specific and detailed example of two villagers (whom they named) from Güzeldere, in Genç, Bingöl province. One received a conciliation proposal of TL 25,000 (US$16,750) in January 2006, while another villager with considerably more land received a proposal in March for TL 13,000. Bingöl lawyer Cevat Ishakoğlu also gave detailed information about two brothers from a named village near Solhan, Bingöl province. The brothers had almost identical circumstances, and were displaced on the same day, but one received TL 6,500 while the other received TL 18,000 ($4,550 and $12,060, respectively). Ishakoğlu said that lawyers find the inconsistencies upsetting because they lead clients to suspect underhand dealings between the lawyers and the authorities, or between fellow villagers and commission officials. He said that he himself had noticed that on one particular day a large group of conciliation proposals had been issued with an extremely low average of payments. He went to the assessment commission and was astounded when an official told him that the reason the commission had made such low payments was that on the day in question the members had been “all very depressed.” Ishakoğlu reported that on one occasion, due to a bureaucratıc oversight, two different commissions assessed the losses of a single villager, one of his clients. One commission found the loss to be TL 14,000 ($9,380), the other TL 9,000 ($6,030). |