4 women to compete for Istanbul bar’s presidency for first time in its history

ISTANBUL

The Istanbul Bar Association, where four female candidates will compete for the presidency, will be chaired by a female lawyer for the first time in its history if one of them is elected.

Principle First Contemporary Lawyers Group’s Filiz Saraç, Independent Lawyers Group’s Gülden Sönmez, Lawyer First Group’s Elif Görgülü and Young Lawyers Movement’s Türkan Kara will compete for the presidency of the Istanbul Bar Association, which was established in 1878 and is the world’s largest bar association with nearly 57,000 members.

Principle First Revival Movement’s Hasan Kılıç, Lawyers’ Rights Group’s Gökhan Ahi, Istanbul Nationalist Lawyers Group’s Hakan Çatak, Metin Uracin and Mert Er Karagülle will be the other candidates.

The ordinary general assembly to determine the new chair and administration will be held at the Haliç Congress Center on Oct. 22 and 23.

For the first time in the 144-year history of the association, four female candidates will compete for the presidency, while a veiled lawyer will be a candidate for the first time.

If one of the female candidates is elected, a woman will preside over the bar for the first time in 144 years.

Saraç served as a member of the board of directors, general secretary and vice president at the Istanbul Bar, while Sönmez, who has been involved in many national and international studies in the field of human rights, provides legal support to various non-governmental organizations and associations voluntarily.

Serving as a board member of the current administration, Görgülü is a member of the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Türkiye (KAGİDER) and the Turkish Animal Protection Association (THKD).

Kara, who is currently the Istanbul Bar Association’s regional representative for Princes’ Islands, is a member of the child rights, human rights and fair trial follow-up centers of the association.

Having received over 32 percent of the total number of votes with more than 8,500 votes out of 26,030 in 31 ballot boxes in total, Mehmet Durakoğlu was re-elected for the third time as the president at the general assembly held in 2021, which was postponed for one year due to the pandemic.

Durakoğlu, who was the vice president of the bar association between 2006-2008 and 2010-2016, was elected as the president as a candidate for Principle First Contemporary Lawyers Group in 2016, after receiving more than 50 percent of the votes.

He was re-elected in 2018, when he received around 31 percent of the votes with Principle First Contemporary Lawyers Group.

Principle First Contemporary Lawyers Group has been winning the elections for nine consecutive terms, while Durakoğlu did not become a candidate for the next term.