Criminal defense in assault and injury cases under Turkish law begins with a basic but crucial point: Turkish criminal law does not usually analyze these files under a broad, free-floating concept of “assault” in the common-law sense. In practice, the core statutory framework is built around offenses against bodily integrity, especially intentional injury under Articles […]
Fraud prosecutions in Turkey are rarely simple. Even where the file looks like an ordinary “deception for gain” case, the real dispute is often more complex: Was there a criminal fraud or only a failed commercial transaction? Was the complainant actually deceived, or did the parties knowingly take contractual risk? Is the case one of […]
Absolute grounds of unlawfulness in Turkish criminal appeals are among the most important doctrines in Turkish criminal procedure because they identify errors so serious that the law treats them as outcome-affecting without requiring the appellant to prove actual prejudice in the ordinary way. In the language of the Code of Criminal Procedure, these are the […]
Court of Cassation review in criminal cases in Turkey refers to temyiz review before Yargıtay, the country’s court of cassation for ordinary criminal matters. In the current institutional structure, Yargıtay operates through criminal chambers, and the official Yargıtay website states that it currently has 22 criminal chambers, with chambers sitting with one chamber president and […]
Regional appellate review in Turkish criminal law, known in practice as istinaf before the bölge adliye mahkemesi, is one of the most important stages of modern Turkish criminal procedure. It is the first ordinary level of review after a first-instance criminal judgment, and it serves as the main mechanism for correcting procedural errors, evidentiary mistakes, […]
How appeals work in Turkish criminal cases is one of the most important practical questions in Turkish criminal procedure because a criminal judgment is rarely the end of the legal story. In Türkiye, the appeal system is structured to give parties a meaningful opportunity to challenge errors of fact, law, procedure, reasoning, and sentencing after […]
The burden of proof in Turkish criminal proceedings is one of the core principles that determines whether a criminal case is decided under the rule of law or merely under suspicion. In Türkiye, the criminal process does not begin from the assumption that an accused person must prove innocence. It begins from the opposite position: […]
The presumption of innocence in Turkish criminal law is not a decorative principle or a slogan used only in academic writing. It is one of the structural rules that shape the entire criminal process in Türkiye, from the opening of the investigation to the wording of public statements, the treatment of defendants in court, the […]
Criminal court hearings in Turkey are the stage where a criminal accusation stops being only a prosecutor’s file and becomes a judicial process conducted before a court. For defendants, this is the part of the case where the indictment is formally brought into court, the evidence is presented and debated, witnesses and experts may be […]
Expert reports in criminal cases can be decisive in Turkey because many criminal files turn on questions a judge cannot answer with ordinary legal knowledge alone. Technical causation, medical findings, digital traces, accounting flows, signature analysis, valuation issues, and scientific measurements often enter the case through an expert report rather than through a witness or […]