It depends on where the translation is going, and the decision belongs to the authority which will receive it rather than to the translator. As a matter of Turkish law there are three texts: the copy handed to the parties, which the Code itself names; a copy whose conformity with the original the registry has certified; and a print-out taken from the electronic system with no certification on it yet. All three carry the same decision, but the lines added above and below it differ, and those lines are what a receiving authority reads first.
Three texts, three separate provisions
Under HMK Article 301(1), once the judgment has been written, signed and sealed with the court’s seal, copies are handed by the registry head to each of the parties against receipt, one is served on the other party and one is kept in the file. The second paragraph supplies the name: the copy given to each party is the ilam. The Registry Services Regulation deals with further copies separately, providing that suretler are issued by the registry head with a statement that they conform to the original and with that certification on them. The third text is the print-out of a decision created with a secure electronic signature, which at that stage carries no certification line at all.
The sentence that turns a print-out into a copy
Where a physical copy has to be produced from the electronic medium, HMK Article 445(3) requires it to be signed and sealed by the judge, or by the registry head the judge authorises, with a statement that it is identical to the original. On the criminal side the same task falls to the judge, the public prosecutor or an authorised person. The Registry Services Regulation even supplies the wording, a single sentence certifying that the copy is identical to the original signed with an electronic signature. That sentence is not skipped in translation; it is precisely what an authority abroad looks for, and without it the page remains an uncertified print-out.
Where the seal is dispensed with, and where it is not
The exemption sits in one Code only. CMK Article 38/A(6) provides that for documents and decisions signed with a secure electronic signature, the provisions on sealing and on drawing up more than one copy do not apply; Article 38/A(4) adds that such documents are not additionally drawn up on paper unless that is necessary. The Code of Civil Procedure contains no equivalent exemption: HMK Article 445(2) only provides that e-signed records are not sent again physically and that no paper copy is required, while Article 445(3), quoted above, requires a physical copy to be signed and sealed. So the absence of a seal on a criminal e-signed document is not a defect, whereas a civil paper copy without signature and seal remains an uncertified print-out. Where an authority abroad expects a seal, that expectation is answered in a translator’s note with the article number, not by adding anything to the body of the translation.
When the copies in the parties’ hands differ
HMK Article 301(3) provides that where the copies of the judgment held by the parties differ, the copy in the decision file is taken as the basis. Criminal procedure has a comparable conflict rule: where an e-signed document contradicts a wet-signed one, the e-signed document recorded in the system is accepted as valid. A translator who notices such a divergence does not resolve it. The rendering states which text it was made from and reports the difference.
Where an uncertified print-out will not do
Some files settle the question themselves. For the exequatur of a foreign judgment the Code asks for the duly approved original or a copy approved by the judicial organ which gave it, so no translation for that file can rest on a bare print-out. Where a Turkish decision is to be used abroad, the certification chain is likewise built on a certified copy, because each link confirms the signature and seal of the one before it. For a translation made purely to inform a colleague, a print-out may be quite enough. Acte Tercüme translates a court document from the copy it receives and shows in the translation which copy that was.