Pinar Denktas
As a Turkish Cypriot growing up on a small but strategically important island of which the deadlock over its future has remained unsolved, Pinar Denktas developed a particular interest in international dispute resolution law.
Furthermore, as the granddaughter of the Founding President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Mr. Rauf Raif Denktaş, she has obliged herself to serving the TRNC in the international arena.
For the reason that her grandfather remained as the President of the TRNC for twenty-one years, most of her family members are involved in politics or legal affairs. Pinar’s uncle was the Vice-Prime Minister of the TRNC, her brother is a deputy ambassador at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Republic of Turkiye, who served as the spokesman of the Turkish Embassy in Washington and Turkey’s representative to the United Nations, and one of her cousins is a judge in the TRNC. Her late father, who was an Oxford graduate, was a journalist, academic and parliamentarian in the TRNC.
On her part, Pinar Denktas became a lawyer, following in the footsteps of her grandfather, who was an Oxford-trained lawyer, and her great-grandfather, who was a judge. For this purpose, after graduating from Robert College in Istanbul, she completed the baccalaureate degree on Law at the Eastern Mediterranean University in the TRNC, followed by a master’s degree in European Business and Trade Law at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.
Further to her studies, Ms. Denktas worked in top tier law firms in Turkiye for nearly seven years. In 2016-2017 she devoted herself to make a difference in the justice system of Turkey and successfully passed the examination to become a judge. She also served as a legal consultant at the Deputy Prime Ministry and the Ministry of Finance of the TRNC. During her career, Pinar represented mainly international clients in matters of litigation, arbitration, and areas of practice include family law, inheritance law, criminal law, IT law, immigration law, commercial law, debt collection, insolvency and bankruptcy, and labor law. In addition to her thorough expertise in these matters in Turkish law, she also practices law in Northern Cyprus and has extensive experience in international law on these areas of law. Also as a legal consultant at the Ministry of Finance, she prepared and suggested the implementation of new legislation one of which is the law pertaining to mediation in civil and commercial matters, as she is also a mediator before the Ministry of Justice of Turkiye.