An extradition file crosses the border in one of two directions: a State asks Türkiye to hand over a person found on Turkish territory, or Türkiye asks another State for someone abroad. Between Türkiye and most European States the instrument is the European Convention on Extradition of 13 December 1957 (ETS 024), in force for Türkiye since 18 April 1960. Its language provision is a single article of two sentences, and the two sentences give rights to different parties.
Article 23: two sentences, two rights
The first sentence provides that the documents to be produced are in the language of the requesting or of the requested Party. The second leaves the requested Party an option: it may require a translation into one of the official languages of the Council of Europe, to be chosen by it. The requesting State may therefore draft in its own language, and the State that receives the request is the one that can set a translation requirement. That is why the target language in an extradition file cannot be chosen without reading the records of the State the request is going to.
Türkiye set no language requirement
Türkiye signed the Convention on 13 December 1957 and ratified it on 7 January 1960. Its entries in the Council of Europe records concern other matters, and there is no Article 23 declaration among them. At the level of this Convention a request reaching Türkiye may therefore be in the requesting Party’s own language, French for instance, and a Turkish translation is not a requirement flowing from the Convention. Where Türkiye does ask for a translation, Article 23 limits the choice to an official language of the Council of Europe, that is to English or French. What a Turkish authority expects beyond that record is not stated in the text.
What the destination States require
For a request leaving Türkiye the position reverses, and the other State’s declaration decides. France declared on 10 February 1986 that it requires a translation of extradition requests and annexed documents into an official language of the Council of Europe and that it chooses French. Belgium declared on 29 August 1997 that where the request and the documents are in the requesting Party’s language and that language is neither Dutch, French nor German, a French translation is required. Switzerland asked, on 20 December 1966, for a translation into French, German or Italian where the papers are not in one of those languages, and Germany, on 2 October 1976, for German or an official language of the Council of Europe. Luxembourg has no Article 23 declaration. The in-force dates differ as well: Switzerland 20 March 1967, Luxembourg 16 February 1977, France 11 May 1986, Belgium 27 November 1997.
Bilateral treaties set their own rule
Where the other State is not a party to the 1957 Convention, a bilateral treaty may govern. The United States is not a party, and the 1979 treaty between Türkiye and the United States has the extradition request drawn up in the requesting Party’s language with certified translations into the language of the requested Party annexed to it (Article 6(2)): here the translation is part of the request, not a choice left to the requested State. In the 1982 criminal convention with Tunisia the request is in the requesting State’s language and the requested State may ask for a translation into its own language where it finds that useful (Article 30). In the 1989 criminal convention with Morocco the request carries a translation into the requested State’s language, certified by a sworn translator or approved under the law of the requesting State.
Files prepared in Türkiye
When Türkiye is the requesting State, the request and its annexes are drawn up by the local judicial authority. The Ministry of Justice circular of 20 November 2024 has that authority send the papers to the Ministry in three sets and without having them translated (para. 6), and asks for long sentences, long paragraphs and abbreviations to be avoided because the request and its annexes will be translated into a foreign language (para. 7). It does not say through which office the translation is then made.
The Law, the court and the costs
Articles 10 to 22 of Law No. 6706 on international judicial cooperation in criminal matters govern extradition and contain no provision on translation; in that Law translation appears in the provisions on transferred proceedings, on enforcement taken over or handed over, and on the transfer of sentenced persons. Since the Law leaves Türkiye’s international agreements in place (Article 1(3)), the language of an extradition file comes from the Convention or from a bilateral treaty. A request concerning a person in Türkiye is examined by the heavy penal court of the place where the person is found, and by the heavy penal court in Ankara where that place is unknown (Article 15(1)). On costs the Law distinguishes by purpose: an extradition sought for investigation or prosecution produces costs counted as litigation costs, while those of an extradition sought for the enforcement of a sentence are collected from the convicted person (Article 34(2)). How a translation is counted within them is not separately written. Acte Tercüme translates extradition requests and their annexes arriving from abroad into Turkish, and files leaving Türkiye into English or French.