a critical evaluation on the concept of justice in planning process

economically, and culturally defined different social class, group and individuals
interest from the resources and opportunities of urban space. Expression of location
criteria in terms of profit/loss mechanisms or of social interest does not bring any clarity
to the adoption of justice within the context of these techniques and concepts. In this
sense, the proposals in methodology of planning discipline do not carry any sufficient
quality with respect to debates of justice. The basic problem belongs to the question of
which justice criteria the practice of planning discipline as an actor of organization and
distribution mechanism takes its departure from and what the sufficiency level of these
criteria are.
The planning practice in Turkey; planning as a public and administrational
activity is realized formally by those instruments and processes where positive law is
defined within the legal process and informally by different influences of the actors.
The made decisions together with the urban demands of actors, the legal order
and planning within a specific geography and specific time of such processes involved
within pass through a series of preferences. This process created by the actors and
decisions made correspond to a series of assents in sphere of “values”. This system of
values encountered by such concepts as true, good, just, equal or beneficial is reflected
upon the process of spatial formation via expression sometimes by norms, and other
times by obscure mechanisms.
In context of this study, the below mentioned dimensions are taken into
consideration in examination of the concept of “justice” as the fundamental element of
this system of values within which the discipline of planning takes place:
1. Essence of matter: under which conditions of reality, what are the basic
principles and aims?
2. Process: what are the instruments and methods?
3. Result: what are the results of the process?
Therefore, this thesis aims at analyzing the position of the concept of justice as a
component in the system of values within the planning discipline.
In this study, which aims at discussing the concept of justice with particular
reference to the cases of lawsuit, the included actors as representatives of conflicting
demands during the process of adjudication in relation to the process of planning are as
follows: planners as representatives of the planning discipline; local governments
(municipalities) as institutions of implementation; courts as the representatives of the
legally given decisions and the law-state system; and individuals as those living in
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