An ödeme emri is the document sent to a debtor in enforcement without a judgment, calling on the debtor to pay or to state an objection. For a debtor abroad it is often the first paper to arrive from Türkiye. The decisive question for the English is who issued it: no court judgment stands behind a payment order, and the words around it in translation should not lead the reader to think that a judge has decided anything.
Who issues it, and what it asks
Under İİK Article 60, the head of the enforcement office (icra müdürü) issues a payment order once satisfied that the enforcement request meets the conditions of the Law. The order carries the entries of the request, calls for payment of the debt and costs within seven days, warns the debtor to deny the signature or dispute the debt within the same period, sets out the duty to declare assets and states that enforcement will continue if nothing is done. The debtor objects to the enforcement office within seven days of service, in writing or orally (Article 62(1)). In attachment proceedings based on bills of exchange, cheques and promissory notes, the order allows ten days to pay and five days to object, and the objection goes to the enforcement court (Article 168). The Regulation numbers the forms: Form 7 for the general payment order, Form 10 for bills of exchange and Form 13 for rent claims (Article 19).
Payment order, anchored to its issuer
The suggested rendering is “payment order”. Its weak point is that some readers connect it with an order made by a court: in the European Union’s order for payment procedure, the document of that name comes from a court, and in common law usage an order is usually a court’s. The remedy lies in the surrounding words. The office is “enforcement office (icra dairesi)”, the official who signs is “head of the enforcement office”, and the route is “enforcement without a judgment” for ilamsız takip. With those anchors in place, “payment order” no longer implies a judge. The form number stays in the translation too, since it identifies the kind of proceedings more precisely than any English title.
Words that point to another procedure
“Payment injunction” is the first rendering to avoid; an injunction is a court’s command or prohibition, which the payment order is not. “Summons” calls a person to appear before a court, and the payment order calls for no appearance. “Demand for payment” errs the other way: it sounds like a letter from the creditor, while the payment order is an official act of the enforcement office with statutory warnings attached.
Itiraz is an objection, not an appeal
The word that misleads most is itiraz. An objection to a payment order does not ask a higher authority to review a decision; it is the debtor’s statement that the debt or the signature is not accepted, and in the general payment order it goes to the office that issued the order (Article 62(1)). Rendered as “appeal”, it would tell the reader that the order was a court decision and that the objection travels to a higher court. “Objection” is suggested, and the period and the recipient stay together: seven days and the enforcement office for the general order, five days and the enforcement court for bills of exchange. Enforcement without a judgment is closed against a foreign State (Article 42), so enforcement against a State rests on a judgment, and the warning specific to it appears in the enforcement order instead (Article 32(2)).