Information and documents that reach Türkiye through judicial cooperation cannot be used outside the file they were requested for unless the sending State permits it, and Turkish material sent abroad travels under the mirror image of that rule. Article 6 of Law No. 6706 on international judicial cooperation in criminal matters states it and names the three situations in which no permission is needed. For a lawyer abroad holding bank records or witness statements obtained from Türkiye, that one article decides whether the material can be carried into a second set of proceedings.
The rule in Article 6
Article 6(1) provides that information and documents arriving within the scope of judicial cooperation cannot be used outside the investigation, prosecution or enforcement proceedings that were the subject of the request, unless the sending State gives permission. Three things are named: the material, the proceedings it was requested for, and the consent of the State that sent it. Nothing in the provision turns on who physically holds the document afterwards, or on how useful it would be somewhere else.
Three situations where consent is not needed
Article 6(2) lists the exceptions. Permission is not sought where the legal characterisation of the offence that was the subject of the request changes; where suspects or accused persons who emerged after the judicial cooperation act are brought into the investigation or prosecution; and where information and documents concerning the offence are needed in civil actions connected with that offence. The third is the one most often missed. A civil claim connected with the same offence may draw on the material without a fresh consent, while an unconnected civil claim falls back under the rule in Article 6(1).
Who gives consent in the other direction
Where a State asks to use Turkish material differently, the decision does not belong to the court that produced it. Article 3(1)(c) places among the Central Authority’s powers the giving of consent to the use of information and documents requested by States, the limiting of that use, and the making of it subject to a security or a condition. Article 2(1)(b) defines the Central Authority as the Ministry of Justice. A request to widen the use of material obtained from Türkiye therefore goes to that office rather than back to the prosecutor who executed the original request.
Conditions that bind the Turkish authority
Article 3(3) allows the Central Authority to make the execution of a foreign State’s request subject to a condition or a security. Article 3(4) adds that, outside matters falling within judicial competence, the Central Authority may accept conditions put forward by States or give the security asked for, and that conditions it accepts or securities it gives bind the judicial authorities. A limitation written into a covering letter is therefore not a courtesy. Once accepted, it constrains the Turkish court or prosecutor handling the file, which is why its wording is worth reading closely on both sides.
When a request is turned back, and when it is refused
Article 3(6) lets the Central Authority turn a request back where there is clear disproportion between the gravity of the offence behind it and the labour, working time and expense needed to carry it out, or where it concerns acts that a State habitually declines to perform. Article 4(1) sets out separate grounds for refusal: violation of Türkiye’s sovereign rights, national security, public order or other fundamental interests; an act that is purely a military, thought or political offence or one connected with a political offence; credible reasons to believe the person concerned will be exposed to investigation, prosecution, punishment, torture or ill treatment on grounds such as race, ethnic origin, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion; and the absence in the requesting State of the fundamental guarantees relating to the right of defence.
Three layers in one file
Article 5 provides that, where neither this Law nor other laws contain a provision, the Code of Criminal Procedure applies to the execution of judicial cooperation requests, and Article 1(3) leaves the international agreements to which Türkiye is a party, and the provisions of other laws, in place. A cooperation file therefore usually rests on three layers at once: the convention or the reciprocity basis, Law No. 6706, and the Code of Criminal Procedure for whatever the first two leave open. Article 2(1)(c) describes the whole exercise in one line, as acts that the judicial authorities of one State carry out on behalf of those of another.
The restriction is part of the document
Acte Tercüme translates the covering letters, conditions and undertakings that travel with judicial cooperation material, and the records and documents themselves, between Turkish, English and French. A restriction written into a covering letter is rendered in full rather than summarised, because the scope of the permitted use is fixed by its exact wording and not by its general sense.