Dear students,
Welcome to the Faculty of Law of the University of Fatih Sultan Mehmet (Mehmed the Conqueror)
In the era we live in, the need for law education is of great importance for our country and its future. Especially, beginning with the new millennium, there has been fundamental reforms in the legal system concerning the very principles of both public and private law, which have proved to be of great importance for the current needs of the society. These reforms are in fact the consequence of the idea of natural law. The legislator (Grand National Assembly of Turkey), powered by the citizens who are the very owner of the sovereignity themselves, is entitled and rightful to reshape and redirect the positive law with the idea of natural law in mind, and it will certainly do its best in this regard in order to reach the ideal conditions in consideration of the current needs of the society. In other words, the existence of legal norms and the principle of the superiority of law are the basics of the state of law. So, it is obvious that a proper law education is of great importance, as it wouldn’t be possible to maintain the state of law without it. It is known that, among others, one major raison d’être of the rule of law, is to ensure justice; for it is the idea of justice which serves as one of the most basic ideas behind the state. Hence, in order to maintain this very basic raison d’etre of law, there is certainly a need for educated, highly qualified, modern thinking and internationally capable jurists who will carry out the objective application of the provisions of law. Founded with the idea to give a law education that will ensure these qualities to the future jurists, the Faculty of Law of the University of Fatih Sultan Mehmet (Mehmed the Conqueror) thus started its activity in the academic year of 2012-2013.
In the faculty of law, the courses are lectured in Turkish with the conscience of the importance of law education. However, we aim to provide courses on foreign law systems which will be lectured in English. In this regard, our future students will have to take a proficiency test for English, and the students who do not qualify as proficient in this regard, will be provided to take foreign language courses for one year in our faculty. Considering the phenomenon of globalisation, it should seem quite obvious that it will no longer be easy to carry out a profession without being proficient in a foreign language.
With this mindset, as the language of English has gained great importance and become a global communication language, we, like our fellow faculties which are also aware of the importance of this fact, provide our students with English courses on Professional English (legalese).
Our faculty is aware of the fact that the changes and developments, brought by the age of Information we live in which have fundamentally changed each and every aspect of our lives, has also had its effect on the law profession. The effects of the information and communication Technologies on the law system can be clearly seen in the preamble of the recently adopted Turkish Code of Commerce. One can conclude that the new Code, replacing the former Code of Commerce after 50 years of its rule, is based on informatics. Today, the judicial system is based on the National Judiciary Informatics System called “UYAP”; and new Technologies such as e-signature, e-commerce, e-state, computer forensics, e-payment systems and e-money, e-registers, e-receipt, the protection of personal data, cybercrimes and registered e-mail are legislated in the provisions of law. Now in Turkey, we have a new branch of law, “information Technology law”, with its own principles and rules, independent from other domains of law. So, as one of our objectives in this faculty, we aim, in this regard, to provide obligatory courses on IT law during the undergraduate program, as well as in our prospective post graduate and doctoral programs; in order to encourage our students to specialize in this matter.
In addition to the IT law, considering the modern tendencies in the faculties of law from around the wourld, we aim to offer our students a wide range of courses on intellectual property law, competition law, energy law and sustainable growth law etc. to give them an opportunity of specialization.
Rather than the usual, conventional law education; the faculty of law of the University of Fatih Sultan Mehmet aims to provide a modern law education that ensures our students to have the ability of not only applying the provisions of law but also making contributions to the legislation procedure of these provisions with their knowledge and vision.
Our campus is located at Halıcıoğlu, where the old Court of Beyoğlu was located. Our students will take their courses in this pleasant building which has a great view of the beautiful Golden Horn. We have proper equipment in our classrooms complying with the current technological advancements. Along with the possibility to provide moot court practices, there are other social facilities in our faculty as well.
At the end of their law education in our faculty of law, our prospective students will have the possibility to be a judge, a public prosecutor, a lawyer, a district governor or a notary public. They will also have the possibility to take part in international organizations as well as in the private sector. Finally, there is also a third option for them to prosper and make a career in the academia.
The faculty of law primarily aims to offer our prospective students a chance to find the areas they may seem appropriate to specialize in, and to give them a proper law education to make them shine among their competitors both in public and private sectors as well as in the academia.