A judgment of a Turkish administrative court is built from a list of nine matters in Article 24 of Law No. 2577 on Administrative Judicial Procedure (İYUK), and a reader abroad meets it when a company, an employee or a shareholder has challenged an act of a Turkish authority: a permit refused, a fine imposed, a tender excluded, a residence application rejected. The document looks slighter than a civil judgment and carries fewer formulas, which is precisely why each of the nine lines matters in the English version.
Nine matters, and one with no counterpart
The lettered items run from (a) to (ı) in the Turkish alphabet: the names and titles and addresses of the parties and of any counsel or representatives; a summary of the events and legal grounds the claimant put forward, the relief sought and a summary of the defence; in cases heard at the Council of State, the names of the rapporteur judge and of the public prosecutor together with their opinions; in cases with a hearing, whether one was held and who attended; the legal grounds and reasoning on which the decision rests and the operative part, with the amount awarded in compensation cases; the litigation costs and the party bearing them; the date of the decision and whether it was given unanimously or by majority; the names and signatures of the president and members or of the judge, with any dissents; and the name of the chamber or court with the docket and decision numbers of the file. Sub-paragraph (c) is the item with no ready counterpart abroad, since it puts a rapporteur judge and a public prosecutor inside an administrative case, and their written opinions appear in the judgment without binding it.
The summary is the court’s own voice
Sub-paragraph (b) asks for a summary, not a reproduction, of the claimant’s account and of the defence. What the reader sees is therefore the court’s compression of a petition it read, and the English version renders that compression as it stands. Adding back a detail from the petition, or tidying a summary that reads awkwardly because the court cut it short, changes a party’s claim into something the court never wrote.
Thirty days to write, and one to count from
A sentence added to Article 24 in 2021 by Law No. 7331 has decisions written and signed within thirty days of the date on which they were given. Two dates therefore live in the same document, the date of the decision under sub-paragraph (g) and the date of the signature, and they are labelled separately. The judgment also records whether it was given unanimously or by majority; that phrase is short, easy to drop and decides whether a dissent should be looked for at the end.
Which court, and against which authority
The heading names an administrative court, a tax court, a regional administrative court or a chamber of the Council of State, and the defendant is an administration: a ministry, a directorate, a municipality or a regulatory authority. Institutional names are rendered descriptively with the Turkish name in brackets at the first mention, and a translation does not promote a first-instance administrative court to a higher body by choosing a grander English word. One rule of the Law is worth knowing while reading the reasoning: bringing an action before the Council of State or an administrative court does not of itself stay the execution of the act challenged (Article 27(1)), so a judgment may discuss an act that was applied throughout the proceedings.
The original stays, a certified copy travels
Article 25 divides the document into three physical objects. One original signed by the president and members or by the judge goes into the decision file, a second into the case file, and the parties are served with a copy certified with the court seal and the signature of the president or judge, or at the Council of State of the president of the chamber or board or a member designated for it. The document in a party’s hands is thus a certified copy, and the certification entry is part of it and is translated with it, since a receiving authority abroad may ask what the stamp beside the last signature says.
What follows for the administration
Article 28(1) supplies the line that makes such a judgment worth translating quickly: the administration is obliged to act without delay in accordance with decisions of the Council of State, the regional administrative courts and the administrative and tax courts on the merits and on the stay of execution, and that period may in no case exceed thirty days from the service of the decision on the administration. The judgment does not state what the administration will do; it states what it is now obliged to do. A sworn translation made in Türkiye is not automatically accepted abroad; some authorities require a translator from their own sworn list. Check with the receiving authority before the translation starts. Acte Tercüme translates Turkish administrative court judgments and the acts challenged in them into English.