No. A translation is a text showing what the source says, and removing an error from the source is not part of that job. A corrected rendering asserts something the source does not contain, and it loses its credibility the moment the two texts are placed side by side. The translator renders the text; they do not give legal advice, assess the outcome of the document or draft pleadings or contracts. A difference that comes to light is written into the translator’s note, not into the text.
The court corrects its own clerical errors
HMK Article 304(1) provides that clerical and arithmetical errors in a judgment, and other similar obvious errors, may be corrected by the court of its own motion or on the application of one of the parties, and that where the judgment has been served the judge may not correct the error without hearing the parties. The second paragraph shows how the correction is made visible: the decision on the corrected points is written under the copies held at the court and the copies already issued, or on a separate sheet to be attached to them, and is signed and sealed. So even a plain material error has its own procedure, its own signature and its own sheet of paper. Where a party holds an ilam bearing such a correction, that entry appears in the translation as well.
Even clarification cannot touch the operative part
If a judgment is insufficiently clear, raises doubt in its enforcement or contains contradictory paragraphs, either party may ask for it to be explained until enforcement is complete (Article 305(1)). Article 305(2) then draws a sharp line: the rights granted and the obligations imposed on the parties in the operative part may not be restricted, extended or altered by way of clarification. Where a point was left undecided, the route is a supplementary decision under Article 305/A. In a system which leaves the court itself so narrow a margin, an attempt by a translator to make the operative part clearer would be a step outside the text.
Names, dates and numbers stay as written
Docket and decision numbers, register numbers, dates, interest rates and sums of money are carried over as the source writes them. Where a date looks inconsistent, for instance a finality date falling before the date of the judgment, the right course is to report the discrepancy rather than to adjust the date. Notarial documents make the same point from another angle: a notarial minute is drawn up as a record with the elements the Law prescribes, and the certification annotation contains the identity of the person concerned together with the document of proof shown where the notary does not know them. Those lines are not background information; they are constituent elements of the act, and a rendering which tidies them up removes part of what makes the document what it is.
Where the difference is recorded
A translator’s note stands apart from the body of the translation, in square brackets, and says what it reports: which copy the rendering was made from, which section was left out, and on which line a divergence from the source was seen. Whether the divergence is to be cured is decided by the authority which issued the document or by the lawyer running the file. Spelling is a good example of why this matters: a Turkish party’s name may appear in a foreign decision without Turkish letters, and bringing a name into line with a civil register entry is a matter for its own separate procedure, not for a translation. Acte Tercüme translates court and legal documents keeping the spelling of the source and reports any divergence it sees in a separate note.