A maintenance order made in Germany, a child support decision from a court in the United States or a Swiss judgment on spousal support may have to be collected from a debtor who lives in Türkiye. Two conventions can carry such a claim, and they handle translation in opposite ways: the 2007 Hague Child Support Convention writes a language rule into its own articles, while the 1956 New York Convention leaves the matter to the law of the receiving State. Which one applies depends on the other State, so that is the first question to settle, before any document is translated.
Which convention applies
The 2007 Convention entered into force for Türkiye on 1 February 2017; Türkiye had acceded to the 1956 Convention on the Recovery Abroad of Maintenance on 2 June 1971. Between States bound by both, Article 49 of the 2007 Convention replaces the 1956 Convention to the extent that their scopes coincide. The European Union is a party to the 2007 Convention, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany have been bound through it since 1 August 2014, and it has applied to the United States since 1 January 2017. Switzerland, Morocco and Tunisia are not parties to the 2007 Convention, so with them the 1956 Convention is still the route.
Applications to Türkiye: Turkish translation
Under Article 44(1), an application and its related documents are sent in their original language together with a translation into an official language of the requested State, or into another language which that State has declared it will accept; the competent authority of the requested State may dispense with translation. Türkiye’s declarations of 7 October 2016 name no other language. A claim sent from Munich or from Texas to Türkiye therefore goes with a Turkish translation of the application and of each document attached to it.
The documents Türkiye lists
The same declarations list what should accompany an application: a certified copy of the decision, the document showing that it was served, documents identifying the debtor, a birth certificate, a certificate of education and a statement of arrears. Türkiye also declared that it prefers the Article 24 procedure for recognition and enforcement, that a certified copy of the decision must accompany the application under Article 25, and that it reserves the right not to recognise and enforce maintenance arrangements (Article 30). For translation, every item on the list is a separate document. A statement of arrears consists mostly of dates, periods and figures, and each of them has to match the decision it is calculated from.
Who pays for translating
Article 45(2) places the cost of translating the application and related documents on the requesting State, unless the Central Authorities concerned agree otherwise. Article 45(3) then lets the requesting Central Authority charge the applicant for that cost, except in so far as its legal assistance system covers it. Whether an applicant pays is therefore decided on the applicant’s side of the file, before it is sent. Article 41 excludes legalisation and similar formalities under the Convention; that rule concerns authentication, and it leaves the language rule of Article 44 in place.
Correspondence between Central Authorities
Communications between Central Authorities other than the application follow Article 44(3): unless the authorities agree otherwise, they are in an official language of the requested State or in English or French, and a State may object by reservation to one of those two. In the European Union’s declaration, France and Luxembourg objected to English; the United States objected to French. Türkiye made no such reservation, so letters exchanged with the Turkish Central Authority may be in Turkish, English or French, while the application itself still travels in Turkish.
The 1956 Convention: the receiving State’s law decides
The 1956 Convention contains no article on language or translation. Article 3(2) asks each Contracting Party to inform the UN Secretary-General of the evidence normally required under the law of the receiving agency’s State to prove a maintenance claim, of the manner in which that evidence should be submitted and of the other requirements of that law. Under Article 3(4), the transmitting agency takes all reasonable steps to ensure that those requirements are met. For a claim from Geneva, Rabat or Tunis against a debtor in Türkiye, the translation requirement therefore comes from Turkish law as the law of the receiving State, and meeting it is the task of the transmitting agency in the claimant’s country. No single language rule for the 1956 route can be read from the Convention itself. The United States and Canada are not parties to it.
Order of the file
Acte Tercüme translates maintenance decisions, service records, education certificates and statements of arrears between Turkish, English and French, and places each translation directly after the document it renders. Calculating what is owed and running the claim remain with the lawyer and the Central Authority.