One of the oldest—and most practically useful—maxims of law is this: those who exercise power are under a heightened duty of honesty. Power magnifies error; even a minor act of arbitrariness, when wielded through public authority, may turn into a serious injustice. For this reason, confining the principle of good faith to the narrow corridors of private law impoverishes the legal order.
Article 2 of the Turkish Civil Code may, by its wording, belong to civil law; yet by its spirit, it constitutes the backbone of the entire legal system. “Everyone must comply with the rules of good faith in exercising their rights and fulfilling their obligations; the legal order does not protect the abuse of rights.” This provision does more than establish a standard to be applied ex officio by courts; it also sets a benchmark for the relationship between the state and society. The state cannot content itself with being merely “lawful”; it must also be honest.
At this point, we encounter the familiar objection of administrative law: “We are a distinct branch; we have our own principles; the Civil Code does not apply to us directly.” True—direct application is not possible. Yet hiding behind this objection does not erase an equally undeniable reality: administrative law breathes through the general principles of law. Good faith, legitimate expectation, legal certainty, proportionality, equality, and the duty to give reasons are not luxuries; they are the basic equipment of a state governed by the rule of law.
Administrative discretion is not a sword to be wielded at will. It is a power bounded by law and oriented toward the public interest. This is where administrative good faith begins: Do the stated reasons for an administrative act correspond to its real purpose? Is the institutional design impressive on paper yet fragile in practice? Does the administration undermine the very trust it has itself created? The inquiry into good faith is not an exercise in mind‑reading; it is an assessment of systemic consequences.
Administrative law rests on the principle of legality: every administrative act must have a legal basis. This is inherent in the nature of public power. The administration acts unilaterally, imposes sanctions, grants and revokes permissions, and, where necessary, executes decisions ex officio. For this reason, mechanically transplanting private law rules into administrative law is often incorrect.
But the opposite claim is equally flawed: that Article 2 of the Civil Code “has no place” in administrative law. On the contrary, good faith is recognised in the jurisprudence of the Council of State and in legal doctrine as a general principle of law, applicable not only in substantive law but also in procedural contexts.
The essence is simple: Article 2 does not generate administrative powers; it restrains conduct. In administrative law, it functions not as an accelerator, but as a brake.
This approach also has a constitutional foundation. Article 2 of the Constitution defines the Republic of Türkiye as a state governed by the rule of law. The rule of law requires the administration to refrain from arbitrariness, enables individuals to trust the state, and demands foreseeability of rules. Within this framework, good faith is not foreign to administrative law; it is complementary.
Good Faith and Maritime Administration
This article is published on a maritime news platform; accordingly, its original purpose includes addressing the maritime dimension of good faith. Maritime affairs are among the areas where administrative law is felt most acutely “on the ground”: harbour master authorities, flag‑state procedures, port state control, environmental inspections, sailing permits, pilotage and tug services, administrative fines.
From the administrative perspective, consistency and standardisation in enforcement are indispensable. If two vessels in identical circumstances are treated differently, the problem is not merely one of equality but of trust and good faith. Administrative acts must be reasoned; “we deemed it appropriate” is not a legally acceptable justification for a sanction. Council of State case law consistently emphasises that administrative acts must be based on lawful cause and reason, and that discretionary power must not be exercised arbitrarily.
Pilotage Services, Public Share Bidding, and Structural Risk
The current controversy in the maritime sector concerns the sharp increase in public revenue shares in tenders for pilotage services, followed by private operators attempting to absorb the resulting financial pressure by drastically reducing pilot pilots’ salaries. We now observe salaries falling from the USD 7–8,000 range to nearly half that amount—and likely to decline further. The reason is obvious: the numbers no longer fit inside the bag. Only about ten percent of what shipowners pay for “pilotage services” ultimately reaches the service itself. This may sound implausible—but it is no longer a hypothetical question; it is today’s operational reality.
Pilotage services may appear commercial, yet in substance they are public in nature. Safety, environmental protection, and public order dominate their character. The higher‑level statutory framework does not conceal this. Amendments to the Ports Law explicitly emphasise that these services must be carried out with priority given to public interest and responsibility, ensuring independence and impartiality, and focusing on the safety of life, property, and the environment.
The law does not instruct the administration to maximise revenue without limit; it instructs it to manage an safety‑oriented public service within the confines of law. While concession methods and tender techniques—including revenue‑share bidding and long‑term transfers—are legally permissible, the decisive question is not the technique itself but which objective it amplifies.
Sector reports indicate public revenue shares reaching 80–90 percent, with figures as high as 89.75 percent in certain regions. These are not accounting details; they define the very core of the model. When the public share is deducted from gross revenue, what remains must finance everything else—profit, training, staffing, maintenance, equipment renewal, and the retention of qualified personnel. When pressure mounts, the first and fastest cost reduction usually occurs in human resources.
In maritime operations, human cost is often safety cost. This does not require romanticism; it requires realism.
Good Faith as a Test of Institutional Design
Here lies the true relevance of good faith. The administration’s duty is not fulfilled merely by declaring “the highest bid wins.” A tender is a regulatory instrument of public service. When the subject matter is so intimately connected with safety, maximising public revenue alone cannot represent the entirety of public interest. Enlarging one component may shrink another: service quality, sustainability, independence, impartiality.
Independence is not achieved through regulatory rhetoric alone; it requires institutional design, effective oversight, and—most critically—working conditions that do not reduce human capital to a residual variable of market pressure.
The familiar administrative defence is quickly deployed: “The contract is governed by private law; employment relations do not concern us.” Formally plausible, substantively incomplete. The administration designs the market through its tender structure. Decisions on revenue shares, risk allocation, quality criteria, and enforcement intensity ultimately shape the labour environment. Even where the administration claims non‑intervention, it has already intervened—indirectly.
Good faith scrutinises these indirect effects. If a regulatory framework is publicly justified in the name of public interest but, in practice, produces wage suppression and safety vulnerabilities, the good‑faith scale registers an alarm.
Proportionality, Sustainability, and Institutional Credibility
Good faith also manifests through proportionality. Increasing public revenue may be legitimate; public income is a component of public interest. Yet proportionality asks whether the means correspond to the end. Revenue shares approaching ninety percent force operators into a binary choice: extraordinary efficiency or aggressive cost‑cutting. Maritime efficiency has limits. Shift systems, training requirements, inspection burdens, and maintenance standards are constrained by physical reality. Financial pressure exceeding these limits inevitably generates cracks—sometimes in wages, sometimes in fatigue, sometimes in motivation, sometimes in the normalisation of risky decisions made to “keep the authority satisfied.”
When an incident eventually occurs, the question “how did this happen?” will be asked. The answer will be simple: it had been happening for some time.
Conclusion: Law Is Not Managed by Headlines
Some ask: “So should the public share be reduced?” The answer is straightforward: the issue is not the numerical level of the share; it is whether the system is honest. Good faith demands clarity of purpose. If the objective is revenue maximisation, do not market “safety” as a slogan. If the objective is safety, do not undermine the people and systems that sustain it.
Law does not protect bad faith. That protection is denied not only to outright falsehoods, but also to attempts to achieve full consequences through half‑truths. Administrative law legitimises public power while simultaneously disciplining it. In safety‑critical sectors such as maritime services, that discipline has a clear name: transparency, foreseeability, consistency, and sustainability.
Increasing revenue is easy. Increasing revenue without shrinking the public service is the true measure of administrative competence. When that competence is lacking, what grows is not public benefit, but public risk.