NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTIONS AS A HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION MECHANISM: THE CASES OF THE OMBUDSMAN AND HUMAN RIGHTS AND EQUALITY INSTITUTION OF TURKEY Scanning of all decisions in the database of the institution revealed that word “discrimination” was used in 93 decisions. A significant portion of these decisions have extracts from Article 6 of the Implementation Regulation related to good governance principles, or applicable legislation, or contain allegations of the applicant, and do not contain an assessment on discrimination. Since all decisions were not published, and the breakdown of the published decisions according to their subjects makes it difficult to make an assessment on applications related to discrimination, it is not possible to make a full assessment of all decisions of the Institution on discrimination. 49 of the published decisions are related to requests for appointment; and in general, a recommendation-decision is made for applications filed because of rejection of a request for appointment for reasons of disability or for ensuring the safety of a female civil servant against violence.12 Among these 49 decisions, there are many applications that are not directly related to discrimination or are not considered within this scope. Although the reasons of discrimination are not limited, since the decisions were on applications claiming discrimination based on three reasons, the applications in relation to disability, religious belief and gender/sexual identity were examined. When selecting the decisions, previously published decisions were also examined, in addition to the decisions that are in the database of the Institution. When selecting the decisions, similar decisions were not examined separately; and the decisions that are distinctive especially in terms of the characterization of discrimination were selected. 1.Applications related to Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities The highest number of recommendation-decisions in the area of discrimination is related to discrimination made against persons with disabilities. The Institution made recommendation-decisions not only in relation to discrimination but also in relation to numerous applications filed by applicants with disabilities. Although the number of applications in the category of disability rights does not seem to be very high, an application of a person with a disability regarding taxation may be classified with applications related to financial matters, not with applications involving disability rights, and as such an application made by a civil servant with a disability can be classified with applications related to civil servants. On the contrary, an application, which has been classified together with the applications related to disability rights may be in fact related to ineffective functioning of social services. Although the Institution made many decisions in relation to applications made by applicants with disabilities, it has not conducted an examination in relation to discrimination in many of them. Since the classification is not made on the basis of rights or discrimination, it is extremely difficult to determine the actual number of applications made to the Institution related to disability rights, and it is not possible to make a quantitative analysis of the applications based on disability-based discrimination. We focused on selecting decisions that discussed discrimination, notwithstanding whether the In12 Request for appointment due to violence threats made by the ex-spouse 2019/17388, 29.11.2019; request for appointment of an employee with a disability 2019/15203, 20.02.2020; 2019/14966, 28.01.2020; 2019/14823, 24.02.2020; 2019/14346, 20.02.2020; 68