EVALUATION OF LITIGATION PROCESS IN TURKISH CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY FROM EXPERT WITNESSES’ PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

A project contains numerous tasks coordinated with associated resources to achieve specific goals. The nature of a project depending on its density of multidisciplinary tasks is considered to be very sophisticated. Therefore, encountering many challenges and risks is probable. When the number of tasks and resources along with their interactions are considered, dispute in a project could be inevitable. In this situation, project parties mostly tend to resolve their disputes through litigation. Nevertheless, in our previous studies, it was detected that 96.1% of the cases were rejected by the Courts of Cassation due to inadequate expert witness, lack of expert witness report, missing review or wrong assessment etc. Hence, it is thought that examining the actors of litigation process is vital in terms of their qualifications and competency levels. Expert witnessess are inavitable parts of litigation process as they play significant roles in the cases concerning construction. Judges mostly rely on the opinions of expert witnesses for the cases containing technical and specific subjects like construction ralated cases. To investigate the qualifications and competency levels of these actors in detail, semi-structured interviews were made with expert witnesses as a qualitative study. Consequently, via analysing the opinions and advices of the expert witnesses, the lack of knowledge in construction terminology and process have been detected for the concerned judicial actors as well as insufficient qualifications and their levels of competency.