Figures, dates and identifiers are carried into a translation exactly as the source writes them, and none of them is converted, rounded or reordered. It sounds like a small rule, and it is the one whose breach causes the most trouble, because Turkish official writing uses conventions that are the mirror image of what an English-reading reader expects.
The thousands mark is a full stop, the decimal mark a comma
The Regulation on official correspondence, which applies to all public institutions and organisations, writes the convention out. Numbers of four digits or more are set in groups of three counted from the end with a full stop between the groups, and fractions are separated by a comma; the Regulation supplies its own examples, 1.452, 25.126, 326.197 and 10.545,72. It also allows numbers in the text to be written in figures or in letters, and where thought necessary in figures followed by the same number in letters in brackets. These are the conventions a reader meets in the covering letters, requests and notifications that travel with a Turkish file. Whether a figure is re-punctuated for the target convention or kept as written and explained is a decision taken once for the whole file and stated, because a silent change of punctuation cannot be told apart from a change of value.
The date is written day, month, year
Under Article 12(1) the date stands at the far right of the writing area, on the same line as the number, as day, month and year in figures with full stops between them, the day and month in two digits and the year in four; the Regulation’s own example is 01.09.2019. Month names may also be written in letters, and then no mark is put between day, month and year, as in its second example, 10 Ekim 2019. So a date reading 03.04.2026 is the third of April. Turning it round into a month-first convention creates a second date inside the file, and where a period runs from that date the invented one is what the reader will count from.
Identity and tax numbers are strings, not quantities
HMK Article 297(1)(b) puts the identities of the parties and of those joining the case, the Turkish identity number and the names and addresses of any legal representative and lawyers inside the judgment. An enforcement request carries the same kind of data: the creditor’s and, where the creditor knows it, the debtor’s Turkish identity number or tax identity number, along with the bank name and account details for payment (İİK Article 58(1) and (2)). Numbers of this kind are copied digit for digit, with no thousands marks and no spacing added for legibility, because the reader at the other end will type them into a form.
Sums and rates travel without conversion
İİK Article 58(3) shows why. The enforcement request states the amount of the claim or of the security demanded in Turkish currency and, in interest-bearing claims, the amount of the interest and the day on which it began to run, and where the claim or the security is in a foreign currency, the date whose exchange rate the claim is made on. A provision written that way does not survive a conversion, because the currency, the rate date and the starting day are the content rather than the packaging. Nothing is added either: a helpful equivalent in the reader’s own currency turns a document into an estimate.
Verification blocks are copied, not read
Turkish official writing also fixes where information repeats. In a letter running to more than one page the number, date, subject, addressee and reference appear only on the first page, the signature, annex and distribution details only on the last, while the contact information and the document verification information stand at the foot of every page (Article 16(5)). A rendering that repeats or drops those blocks changes how the pages relate to each other. Characters in a verification block are reproduced exactly and never translated, since their only function is to be entered into the system that produced the document. In criminal procedure the absence of a seal is explicit: for documents and decisions signed with a secure electronic signature the provisions on sealing, and those requiring more than one copy, do not apply (CMK Article 38/A(6)), while HMK Article 445(2) provides that e-signed civil minutes and documents are not additionally sent in physical form and need no paper copy. The block itself is described in the Turkish court documents section.
Where a figure looks wrong
A finality date earlier than the date of the judgment, a total that does not match the lines above it, a page number out of sequence: each is reported, not adjusted. Turkish procedure even says where such a question is settled. Where the copies of a judgment held by the parties differ, the copy in the decision file is taken as the basis (HMK Article 301(3)), and where a physical copy has to be produced from the electronic medium it is signed and sealed with a statement that it is identical to the original (HMK Article 445(3); CMK Article 38/A(8)). The rendering names the copy it was made from and says where the divergence sits. Acte Tercüme translates court and legal documents between Turkish, English and French carrying their figures, dates and identifiers as the source writes them.