A foreign party to a divorce, an inheritance dispute or a commercial claim before a Turkish civil court usually acts through a Turkish lawyer, and the lawyer’s authority comes from a litigation power of attorney (dava vekâletnamesi). Article 74 of the Code of Civil Procedure (HMK, Law No. 6100) lists procedural steps that a lawyer may take only with express authority. Whether the power is signed abroad and translated into Turkish, or made in Turkish and shown to a client or court abroad, those clauses have to stay visible one by one in the translation. Whether a power is sufficient for a case is for the lawyer to judge.
The steps that need express authority
Under Article 74, unless expressly authorised, the attorney cannot: settle; challenge the judge; amend the whole of the claim; offer an oath, or accept, return or refuse an oath; appoint another attorney; lift an attachment; request the client’s bankruptcy; conclude an arbitration agreement; waive the action or legal remedies; release the other party or accept its claim; or apply to reopen the proceedings (yargılamanın iadesi). Nor can the attorney bring or pursue, without express authority, actions concerning rights strictly personal to the client.
Two sources, two kinds of clause
A litigation power of attorney can hold clauses from two different laws side by side. Clauses on waiver, acceptance, release, substitution, settlement, amendment and oaths answer Article 74 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Clauses on transferring immovable property, making gifts, standing as surety or assuming obligations under bills of exchange answer Article 504(3) of the Turkish Code of Obligations, which applies to mandates in general. Settlement appears in both lists. The translation keeps each group as it is in the source and does not fold a clause from one group into the other.
Keeping each power separate
The steps in Article 74 look alike but are distinct procedural acts. Waiving the action (feragat) and waiving legal remedies are two powers; if both become a single “waiver”, the translation has changed the authority. Releasing the other party (ibra) and accepting its claim (kabul) are separate as well. The four oath verbs, to offer, accept, return and refuse, stay as four. In “amend the whole of the claim”, the word “whole” stays, because that is how the Code qualifies the power.
One rendering per term
For each clause one rendering is chosen and used throughout. For appointing another attorney (tevkil), “substitution” is one possible English rendering, not an official equivalent. If the same document says “substitution” in one clause and “delegation” in another, a reader may think two different powers were granted. Giving the Turkish term once in brackets at first use lets a reader match the two texts clause by clause.
A power drafted in English or French
A litigation power drafted abroad and translated into Turkish is rendered as written. If the source only says “to settle”, the Turkish text says that; it does not add waiver or acceptance of the claim. Because Article 74 asks for express authority, whether the foreign wording carries it is a question for the lawyer running the case. The translation shows what the source says, and in what order.
Powers for divorce proceedings
Under Article 93(k) of the Notaries Law Regulation, a power of attorney drawn up for divorce proceedings carries the party’s photograph, and under the last paragraph of that article the copies of such acts carry the photograph too. In translation the photograph and the seal over it are marked where they sit on the page. The clause rules above apply unchanged: each power remains a separate sentence and none is summarised. Acte Tercüme translates litigation powers of attorney with every express power kept as its own clause and every Turkish term rendered the same way throughout.