No. Turkish legislation contains no general provision saying that the translation of a court document is certified at a notary’s office. Where such a requirement exists it comes from the file the document enters, not from the fact that a court issued it. In some files the legislation points to a notary; in others the translator’s own endorsement is treated as sufficient; in others again a statute asks for a certified translation without naming who certifies, and leaves that to the authority which receives it.
The Notaries Law builds a route, not a duty
The Notaries Law counts the rendering of documents from one language into another among the notary’s duties and regulates how the act is carried out. It builds a route; it does not list the documents that have to travel by that route. Any rule sending a particular translation to a notary is found somewhere else: in another statute, in a regulation or in a ministerial circular. That is why the shortcut “it is official, so have it notarised” rests on no single article of Turkish law.
In service abroad the test is who filed the papers
Article 40(2) of the Regulation on the Implementation of the Service Law provides that where the papers to be served were filed with the authority effecting service by the party concerned, the translation has to be made at a notary’s office. The third paragraph answers the other situation: where the authority drew the papers up of its own motion, its own translator translates them and the authority certifies. The test is not that the document came from a court but who brought it to the authority. The routes themselves belong to the cross-border matters section.
Criminal papers use the translator’s own endorsement
The circulars on international judicial assistance in criminal matters build a different solution. Translation is entrusted to translators versed in legal language; the translator places on the papers, in the language of the translation, a statement that the translation conforms to the original, and signs it; and the circular adds that no further certification of the translated papers by Turkish judicial authorities is needed. The same kind of document, a court decision for instance, may therefore cross the border under this formula in a criminal file and through a notary’s office in civil service of process. The flexibility on the criminal side does not carry over to the civil side.
A form rule that stands beside certification
The circular on international service in civil matters adds a requirement that is easy to miss. Translation of the papers to be served is entrusted to a translator versed in legal terminology; the person translating writes their name, surname and title, signs every page of the translation, states the language into which it was made, and places on the text, in that language, a statement that it conforms to the original. The criminal circular adds a parallel rule for copies: where a copy rather than an original is served, it carries a note of conformity with the name, surname and title of the person certifying it. None of this replaces certification; it stands next to it, and a gap here is usually noticed before any question of certification arises.
Three statutes, three different words
MÖHUK Article 53(1) asks for an approved translation of a foreign judgment and of the proof of finality, and names no certifying authority. HMK Article 223 obliges the party relying on a document written in a foreign language to file a translation as well, and allows the court to ask in addition for an official translation, an expression the Code does not define. Article IV(2) of the New York Convention ties certification to an official or sworn translator or to a diplomatic or consular agent. None of the three makes a notary’s office the only route, and none of them rules it out; outside the situations the legislation spells out, the authority receiving the translation decides, and that is not a decision the translator can take. Acte Tercüme translates court and legal documents so that the certification route a file will take stays visible in them.