A litigation file is not one long document but dozens of separate ones, so work on a file is two things at once: deciding which of them the rendering covers, and keeping the names, the numbers and the terms identical across all of them. Neither decision can be taken document by document. A file whose petition, expert report and judgment each spell a party differently, or each render the same procedural word differently, becomes harder to follow than the Turkish original it came from.
The statute usually names fewer documents than the bundle holds
Where a file has a statutory destination, that destination fixes the list. MÖHUK Article 53(1) names two attachments for an exequatur petition, the judgment and the writing showing finality, each with its approved translation, and for a foreign arbitral award Article 61(1) adds the arbitration agreement or clause alongside the award, with translated and duly approved copies of both. In the other direction the Ministry of Justice circular on judicial assistance in civil matters excludes material rather than adding it: the statement of claim and the defence are not translated in a letter of request, and letters of request for compulsory enforcement are not transmitted at all. The size of the bundle is therefore a poor guide to the size of the work.
What the parties produce, and what only in part
HMK Article 219(1) obliges the parties to produce every document in their hands relied on as evidence by themselves or by the other side, with electronic documents produced as a print-out and, when asked for, saved to electronic media in a form fit for examination. The second paragraph allows documents in continuous use, such as commercial books, to be produced as certified copies of the relevant parts alone. Article 220(1) lets the court set a definite time limit for a document it considers necessary. A file therefore grows in stages rather than arriving complete, and numbering each document as it comes in is what keeps the Turkish set and the rendered set comparable later.
One party, one spelling, for the whole file
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. The same names have already appeared in the petition, in the service records and in the expert report. A company whose legal form abbreviation is carried over once and translated once reads as two companies; an address localised in one document and transcribed in another reads as two addresses. Where the source itself spells a name in two ways, both spellings stay and the divergence is reported, because bringing a name into line with a register entry is a procedure of its own.
One term, one rendering, across every document
Procedural vocabulary repeats through a file: istinaf and temyiz, ara karar, bilirkişi, tenfiz and icra. A choice made while rendering the petition governs the judgment months later, and a file carrying two renderings of one term invites the reader to believe two different things happened. Fixing the choices for the file at the start, with the reason for each, is what lets a document arriving late be rendered the same way as the first one. Which rendering is used for each term, and where a literal equivalent misleads, is set out in the legal terms section.
The order and the cross-references carry information
Documents in a file point at each other by date and by number: a judgment cites the interlocutory decision of a particular hearing, an expert report lists the annexes it was given, a service record identifies the paper served. A rendering that drops a document’s own heading, or renumbers annexes to suit the target language, cuts those links without saying so. The source numbering stays, and where a referenced document is outside the scope of the rendering, the rendering says so rather than leaving the reader to infer that it does not exist.
What the file-wide decisions are not
Deciding what the file needs is not part of the rendering. Which documents the destination requires is a question for that authority or for the lawyer running the matter, and the answer often narrows the work rather than widening it. The translator renders the text; they do not give legal advice, assess the outcome of the document or draft pleadings or contracts. Where a file is heading for a particular route, the requirements of that route are set out in the cross-border matters section, and the parts of each Turkish document in the Turkish court documents section. Acte Tercüme translates the documents of a litigation file between Turkish, English and French with one set of names, numbers and term choices.