Prof. Dr. Rona Serozan
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Prof. Dr. Rona Serozan, founder of the Rona Serozan Foundation for Comparative Legal Research, was born in Istanbul on June 15, 1942.
He completed his secondary and high school education at Nişantaşı English High School for Boys. In November 1960, he passed the entrance examination of Istanbul University Faculty of Law, from which he graduated with high honors in June 1964. In the same year, in November, he began to work on his doctoral dissertation in Germany, in Tübingen, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ludwig Raiser. In early 1967, within a remarkably short period, he completed his dissertation entitled Die Überwindung der Rechtsfolgen des Formmangels im Rechtsgeschäft nach deutschem, schweizerischem und türkischem Recht (“Overcoming the Legal Consequences of Defects of Form in Legal Transactions under German, Swiss, and Turkish Law”) with the distinction magna cum laude. The dissertation was published in 1968 by Mohr Siebeck Verlag.
Prof. Dr. Rona Serozan began his academic career in 1967 as a research assistant at the Chair of Civil Law of Prof. Selahattin Sulhi Tekinay at the Faculty of Law, Istanbul University. In April 1974, with his work Sözleşmeden Dönme (Termination of Contract), which has since sparked numerous debates and theses/antitheses, he was awarded the title of associate professor (Doçent). After six years in this position, in 1980 he published his professorial thesis Sağlararası İşlem Yoluyla Ölüme Bağlı Kazandırma (Inter Vivos Transactions as a Means of Dispositions Mortis Causa) and applied for professorship at Istanbul University.
Although the evaluation commission found him suitable and the Faculty Board and University Senate approved his appointment, the promotion was not formally completed because the signature of the Head of State, required for the triple decree, was never obtained due to the Military Coup of September 1980. In 1982, under Martial Law No. 1402, he was dismissed from his university position and permanently barred from public service.
From 1982 to 1988, Prof. Dr. Serozan practiced law in Istanbul. During this period, he also spent several years at the University of Tübingen, with which he maintained close academic ties from his doctoral studies until his passing. In 1988, following years of court trials, with the decision of the Council of State, he was reinstated to his position at Istanbul University Faculty of Law as a full professor. He continued to teach full-time in the Department of Civil Law until his retirement on 15 June 2009. From 2009 until his death in November 2018, he served as a full-time professor of Civil Law at Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Law.