Papers from a Turkish administrative or tax court reach an address abroad through the Service Law, not through a channel of their own, and the period to answer runs from the day following service. Article 60 of the Code of Administrative Procedure (Law No. 2577) sends every kind of service of the Council of State and of the regional administrative, administrative and tax courts to the provisions of that Law. What sets these files apart is not the route but the timetable, and the timetable is short.
Which courts, and which law carries the papers
Law No. 2577 governs proceedings before the Council of State (Danıştay), the regional administrative courts, the administrative courts and the tax courts. Article 60 provides that all their service work is carried out under the Service Law and that the fees for such service are paid in advance by those concerned. A tax assessment file, an annulment case against a ministry and a decision of the Council of State therefore travel abroad under the same articles as papers from a civil court, and a lawyer who has handled one Turkish civil file recognises the mechanics at once.
Who serves it where you are
For a person abroad the Service Law offers two paths. Article 25 has service in a foreign country carried out through the competent authority of that country and, 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 allows service on a Turkish citizen abroad through the Turkish Embassy or Consulate as well. Article 42 of the Regulation repeats the first rule for a person who is not a Turkish citizen. Which path is used is decided by the authority issuing the papers, not by the parties.
The period for bringing the case
Article 7(1) sets the period for bringing an action where no separate period appears in a special law: sixty days before the Council of State and the administrative courts, thirty days before the tax courts. Article 7(2) fixes the starting point, which in administrative disputes is the day following the written notification. For taxes, duties, charges and similar financial obligations with their surcharges and penalties it names a different event for each kind of levy: the collection, for taxes whose assessment depends on collection; the service, where service is made or an act takes its place; the payment to those entitled, for taxes collected by withholding; and the registration, for taxes dependent on registration. Article 7(3) deals with notification by publication under a special law: unless that law says otherwise, the period starts to run fifteen days after the day following the last announcement.
How the days are counted
Article 8(1) has periods start to run from the day following the date of service, publication or announcement. Article 8(2) counts holidays inside the period, but where the last day falls on a holiday the period extends to the end of the working day following it. Article 8(3) adds that a period written in the Law which expires during the time the courts have adjourned is deemed extended by seven days from the day following the end of the adjournment. For a file handled from another country these three rules decide how much room there actually is between the papers arriving and the answer going back.
Replies, and the administration’s own file
Article 16(1) has a copy of the statement of claim and its annexes served on the defendant, and the defence given by the defendant served on the claimant; Article 16(2) carries the exchange one round further and stops it there. Article 16(3) gives the parties thirty days from service to reply, a period that may be extended once, by no more than thirty days, by decision of the competent court where there are justified grounds, and requests made after the period has passed are not accepted. Under Article 16(5) the original or a certified copy of the procedural files relating to the case is sent to the presidency of the Council of State or the relevant court together with the administration’s defence. That bundle is usually the largest body of Turkish text a foreign party in such a case has to read.
A written opinion with a ten day answer
Article 16(6) applies to cases heard by the Council of State as a court of first instance: the prosecutor’s written opinion on the merits is served on the parties, and the parties may state their views in writing within ten days of that service. Ten days is the shortest period on this page, and it begins with a document that arrives in Turkish.
Which parts travel in translation
Acte Tercüme translates Turkish administrative and tax court papers, including statements of claim, defences, procedural files supplied by the administration and decisions of the Council of State, into English and French, and translates a foreign party’s reply and supporting documents into Turkish. Assessment periods, figures and file numbers are carried over exactly as written, because every period set out above is counted from them.