The kesinleşme şerhi records that a Turkish civil judgment can no longer be challenged. It is short, it often sits on the back of the last page, and yet a foreign court or registry may ask for it as insistently as for the judgment itself. The English term chosen for it has to answer two questions for the reader: is this a separate document, and what kind of finality does it record?
An entry on the judgment, not a document of its own
Under HMK Article 302(4), finality is shown by writing it below or on the back of the judgment copy (ilam), adding the date and the court seal, and having it signed by the presiding judge or the judge; the Registry Services Regulation repeats the rule in Article 216(6). Where a judgment became final after passing through the appeal courts, Article 302(5) gives the recording to the first-instance court. As the law describes it, the şerh is written onto the judgment rather than issued on its own, and the English name keeps that fact visible.
Annotation, endorsement or certificate
The suggested rendering is “finality annotation”; “endorsement of finality” works equally well. Both tell the reader that the entry is on the judgment. “Certificate of finality” suggests a free-standing paper issued by the court, and it fits only where finality really was confirmed on a separate sheet and that sheet is what is being translated. A heading such as “certificate of no appeal” creates a different problem when the entry itself says the judgment became final after a chamber of the Court of Cassation upheld it. The date in the entry is labelled as the date of finality and kept apart from the date of the judgment.
Why res judicata says too much
Readers from many systems are tempted to read kesinleşme as res judicata. Turkish law separates the two. HMK Article 303(1) requires a judgment that is final in the formal sense (şeklî anlamda kesinleşmiş) before res judicata (kesin hüküm) can arise, so the annotation records a precondition, not the effect. The difference appears in ordinary files. Decisions in non-contentious proceedings, a change of name for instance, do not have res judicata effect in the substantive sense unless the law provides otherwise (Article 388), yet they can carry a finality annotation. Writing res judicata on such a decision adds a quality the statute withholds.
The French term and criminal judgments
In French, “mention de caractère définitif” may be preferred, “mention” being the usual word for an entry written on a document. French procedure distinguishes autorité and force de chose jugée, and each phrase carries its own consequences, which is a reason not to turn either into the name of the entry. For prison sentences, Article 54(1) of Regulation No. 2324 adds further lines to the annotation, including the manner and date of finality and the date the judgment was sent to the prosecutor for execution. The same English term covers that longer entry, and every line in it is translated.
Why the term is looked for abroad
Turkish law asks for the same proof when a foreign judgment comes the other way: an application to enforce it attaches a document showing that it is final, with its own translation, which the statute calls onanmış tercüme (MÖHUK Article 53(1)(b)). A lawyer abroad who receives a Turkish judgment for recognition will be looking for the equivalent line, and a term used consistently across the file makes it easy to find.