A judgment given abroad becomes usable in Türkiye through a decision of a Turkish court. That Turkish decision is mostly needed inside Türkiye, at an enforcement office or before an administrative body, but a party abroad often wants it in English as well: to show a court, a bank or a register in its own country that the judgment was recognised or declared enforceable in Türkiye. What that proves in the other country is a question for the law there. This page is about the Turkish decision itself, whose elements come from Law No. 5718 on Private International and Procedural Law (MÖHUK).
The court, and where the identifying lines come from
The court with jurisdiction over exequatur is the court of first instance (Article 51(1)), and Article 4 of Law No. 4787 lists the recognition and exequatur of foreign judgments in family law among the duties of the family court. The heading may therefore name either. The decision identifies the foreign judgment with the particulars the petition had to contain: which State’s court gave it, the name of that court, the date and number of the judgment, a summary of it and, where exequatur is sought for part only, which part (Article 52(1)(b) and (c)). Those lines are the identity of the file, and nothing in them is abridged in English.
The foreign court’s name is not translated back
The Turkish decision writes the foreign court’s name in Turkish. When the decision is then rendered into English, that name is not translated a second time out of Turkish: the original name and the original case reference are taken from the foreign judgment in the file, and a Turkish rendering is added in brackets only if it helps. Personal names are treated the same way, so a spelling that differs from the identity document is flagged in a note rather than corrected. The petition is served on the other side with the hearing date, except for judgments given in non-contentious proceedings, where that rule does not apply and the request is examined under the simplified procedure (Article 55(1)); the party block may therefore show only the applicant, and no respondent line is added.
The four grounds in Article 54(1)
The conditions for exequatur appear in four lettered paragraphs: reciprocity (a); the exclusive jurisdiction of the Turkish courts and an objection to jurisdiction (b); that the judgment is not manifestly contrary to public policy (c); and the objection of a person against whom exequatur is sought that they were not duly summoned or represented (ç). In recognition, paragraph (a) is not applied (Article 58(1)). The letters follow the Turkish alphabet, so the fourth one is “ç” and is not renumbered “d” in English, otherwise a later reference in the same decision to Article 54(1)(ç) points at nothing. The English text reports what the court found on each condition and adds no assessment of its own.
Recognition, exequatur, or only part of the judgment
The court may declare the judgment enforceable in whole or in part, or reject the request (Article 56). Recognition and exequatur are two different outcomes: exequatur concerns the judgment being capable of execution in Türkiye (Article 50(1)), recognition its acceptance as res judicata or conclusive evidence (Article 58(1)). Whichever the operative part contains is rendered with the term this site uses for it, “recognition” or “exequatur”, and an order covering part of a judgment is described as a partial exequatur. In practice the operative part names the foreign court, the date and the number of the judgment and closes with a capitalised verb; where different heads such as custody or maintenance were treated separately, each keeps its own verb and its own paragraph.
One sheet of paper, two languages
Under Article 56 the decision granting or refusing exequatur is written under the foreign judgment and is sealed and signed by the judge. The document to be translated is then bilingual: the foreign judgment above, the Turkish decision and the seal below. Headings such as “[Text of the foreign judgment:]” and “[Exequatur decision of the Turkish court:]” show the reader which language each part came from, and where only the lower part was translated, a note records that the upper part was left out.
Four dates, and what each of them starts
Such a file holds at least four dates: the date of the foreign judgment, the date it became final, the date of the Turkish decision and the date the Turkish decision became final. The effect of the foreign judgment as res judicata or conclusive evidence runs from the date it became final (Article 59), which is not the date of the Turkish decision. Four dates therefore keep four separate labels, and none of them is reduced to a bare date line. The finality annotation on the Turkish decision belongs to the translation as well. Acte Tercüme translates Turkish recognition and exequatur decisions into English, and English-language foreign judgments into Turkish.