We are pleased to announce that the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia will be hosting a Tobunken seminar with Dr. Veysel Çolaker from Pamukkale University, Turkey, who has been a visiting researcher of this institute since June of last year.
In this seminar, Dr. Çolaker will discuss the functions of the commercial court in Selank (Thessaloniki) in the late Ottoman Empire based on the court records.
The language of this seminar is English. Turkish may also be used in the Q&A session. The seminar will be held both in person and online. To register for this event, please fill in the form below.
Date: April 4, 2024, Thu, 3pm–5pm
Venue: Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo, 3rd floor, Second Meeting Room / Zoom
Speaker: Veysel Çolaker (Pamukkale University/IASA Visiting Researcher)
Title: Commercial Courts in the Ottoman Legal Reforms: The Case of Selanik (Thessaloniki)
Chair: Jun Akiba (IASA)
Registration form: https://forms.gle/YC5TkkyrnZ8FM9Rf8
ABSTRACT
One of the first judicial reforms implemented in the Ottoman Empire after the Tanzimat was the establishment of commercial courts. The 1856 Reform Edict (Islahat Fermanı) also envisioned the establishment of mixed courts for the resolution of disputes arising between Muslims, non-Muslims, and foreigners. Within this framework, commercial courts were established with the Addendum to the Commercial Code (Zeyl-i Kanunname-i Ticaret) issued in 1860. Hence, the commercial laws would be implemented by the relevant courts and the deficiencies of the laws would be corrected by the decisions rendered by the courts. With the 1864 Provincial Law (Vilayet Nizamnamesi), commercial courts were established in the provinces, and in the same year, a commercial court was also set up in Thessaloniki with a president, an assistant and two permanent members appointed by the governor. Although the number of members changed over time, the Thessaloniki commercial court functioned without interruption until 1912, when Greece occupied the city.
Studies on commercial courts are rather scarce. A significant part of the studies is based on provincial yearbooks and some archival records and documents. The reason for this is the lack of registers of the commercial courts. This lecture deals with the Thessaloniki commercial court records in the Historical Archives of Macedonia in Thessaloniki. The purpose of the presentation is to illustrate the structure and functioning of the Thessaloniki commercial court and the types of cases it heard.