A Turkish consulate can serve court papers only on a Turkish citizen, and when it does, the papers arrive in Turkish, in a single set, with no translation attached. For a lawyer abroad whose client holds Turkish nationality that is the practical shape of the route: the bundle is thinner than one coming through the local authorities, and the period runs from a date the mission records rather than from a local service. The Service Law (Law No. 7201) and its implementing Regulation set out the mechanics, and one paragraph of the Regulation decides when service is complete.
The two things a consulate may do
Article 25 of the Service Law has service in a foreign country carried out through the competent authority of that country, adding that where an agreement or the law of that country allows it, the Turkish political officer or consul there asks that authority to serve. Article 25/a, added in 2003, is the separate path: where the person to be served abroad is a Turkish citizen, service may also be effected through the Turkish Embassy or Consulate, and it is then the political officer or consul, or an official they appoint, who carries it out. Article 42 of the Regulation states the corollary, that service on a person abroad who is not a Turkish citizen goes through the competent authority of that country.
Where the authority for it comes from
The international basis is the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, whose list of consular functions covers transmitting judicial and extrajudicial documents and executing letters rogatory, in accordance with the international agreements in force or, where there are none, in any other manner compatible with the laws of the receiving State. Türkiye acceded on 19 February 1976. The Convention sets no rule about the language of what is transmitted, because it is an authority provision: the substance comes from the agreements in force and from the receiving State’s own law.
Turkish, one set, no translation
The Ministry of Justice circular on international service in civil matters records what such a bundle contains: it is enough for the service documents to be drawn up in one set and in Turkish, and no translation into a foreign language is needed (Circular 63/3, para. 35). The same circular notes that this kind of service is possible only in respect of Turkish citizens and that judicial authorities may send it directly to the relevant Turkish mission (para. 33). Where the same citizen is reached instead through the foreign State’s competent authority under a convention, the circular has the service go through that authority with a translation attached (para. 36). One addressee, two routes, two different bundles.
The thirty day notification
Article 43(3) of the Regulation describes what reaches the addressee first. A notification carrying the subject of the service, the authority that issued it and a warning that service will be deemed effected if no application is made within thirty days is sent by the method the law of that country permits. That notification is not the court document. It is an invitation to come and collect it, with a consequence attached to staying away.
The date service is deemed effected
Article 43(4) supplies that date. Where it is documented that the notification was served on the addressee in accordance with the law of that country, and the addressee does not apply to the Turkish Embassy or Consulate within thirty days of that service date, service is deemed effected at the end of the thirtieth day. If the addressee does apply and then refuses to accept the documents, service is deemed effected on the date of the record drawn up on the point, and the documents go back to the issuing authority without being kept. Under Article 43(5) the service is evidenced by a record following form no. 4 in annex 1 to the Regulation, and Article 43(6) has a refusal written on that record and signed by the person effecting service.
Which route the court takes
Article 43(7) allows service issued by judicial authorities under this article to be sent straight to the Turkish Embassy or Consulate, with the papers returned directly to that authority afterwards. Article 43(8) states that the judicial authority issuing the service has a discretion between this article and Article 38, which routes documents through the ministry the issuing authority is attached to, then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then the mission. A party cannot elect the consular path; someone holding Turkish citizenship alongside another nationality stays within Article 43, and which route is used remains the court’s choice.
Reading a consular bundle
Acte Tercüme translates court papers delivered through a Turkish mission abroad, the consular service record and the notification that preceded it into English and French, and translates a reply prepared abroad into Turkish for filing in Türkiye. The date on the record is the one every period is counted from, so it crosses into the other language unchanged.