COVID-19, was born in Wuhan, China and spreading all over the World, continues to affect our lives significantly. Especially with the deterioration of the economy, the effects in the field of law are increasing day by day. We watch important changes in every branch of law, especially and notably in commercial law. On the one hand, we can say that it affected the criminal law with the amendment made to the execution law, and on the other hand it affected the family law with the increase of the divorce rates due to quarantine. Furthermore, "the New Normal" is the concept we began to hear often. So what is this "New Normal"? How do we expect its impact on the area of law?
New Normal
The Covid-19 pandemic shows its effects in many areas of our lives. With the pandemic, many of us started to work from home. This brought many questions in terms of Labor Law. Many questions such as can the employee be forced to work from home or come to the office, should the benefits continue to be paid, how to terminate the employment contract will be possible are asked and continue to be asked. We have given our answers to these questions with our previous articles and memorandums. Today we are talking about the effect of this situation in the area of law. Interpretation of the temporary articles brought to the law or evaluation of the event according to the concrete event and force majeure became important. We can say that the ability to interpret more than information began to stand out. In fact, competent lawyers are aware that this is the the deal and they had already started working in this sense. Some offices set some days of the week to work from home and were familiar with this working order. During this period, these offices adapted without difficulty. On the other hand, lawyers who could not give up traditional methods entered a serious period of confusion. In addition, the closure of the courthouses brought the law of enforcement and litigation to a halt. Consultancy activities continued at the same intensity despite the slowdowns. This was a blow to the offices that thought that they could survive only by enforcement and litigation law. On the other hand, it was observed that if the courthouses were physically closed, things could not be carried out digitally. In this regard, we hope that the necessary digitization studies will be carried out.
While considering the consultancy activities, we believe that it is useful to indicate the areas which these activities concentrated. Especially from the beginning of the pandemic, labor and social security law was at the peak. Immediately afterwards, commercial law with force majeure in contracts and tax law were consulted. Clients with financing projects asked for advice on their loans. What really surprised us was that investors did not suspend their business as much as we expected.
Last but not least, it must be said that training and recruitment processes are affected. Returning to online education and even making law school exams online is a big and significant step. We are delighted to see efforts - even if it is compulsory- in law school education, which is kneaded with a very strict understanding of education, to keep up with the age. On the other hand, we think that it is important for the equal opportunity to be understood by human resources experts that recruitment processes can also be done through platforms such as Skype and Zoom.
We hope that the “New Normal” brings with it individual awareness and a new and fairer order.
Hukuki Açıdan COVID-19
The Legal Aspects Of COVID-19
Deniz HANÇER
Managing Attorney