If there is an error in the calculation of the sentence in the sentence calculation sheet (müddetname), a request may be made to the enforcement judgeship under Article 98/1-b of Law No. 5275. This application is not the same as the 15-day and 30-day periods that apply to complaints against prison procedures. However, the current period for objecting to the enforcement judge's decision is two weeks from notification. The application does not by itself result in release or a stay of enforcement; the error, the supporting documents and the requested correction must be shown together. [1] [2] [4]
The date on which a convicted person's sentence ends is not determined only by adding up the years and months stated in the judgment. The date and nature of the offence, recidivism, time spent in detention, other judgments and applicable transitional provisions can all affect the same calculation. For this reason, reviewing a sentence calculation sheet requires legal classification as well as arithmetic. The aim of the review is not to reopen the final judgment, but to ensure that it is carried out in accordance with law.
What is a sentence calculation sheet and what information does it show?
The legal function of the sentence document
Article 20/4 of Law No. 5275 provides that the convicted person is given a document prepared by the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor, showing the dates on which he will be admitted to the penal institution and on which he will be released, the length of the sentence and the judgment to which the sentence relates. In practice this document, called the müddetname, makes it possible to supervise enforcement. It is not a new criminal decision replacing the final conviction. [1]
It is misleading to look for a single release date on this document. The conditional release date and the release by right (bihakkın tahliye) lead to different legal consequences. The possibility of serving the sentence under supervised release (denetimli serbestlik) is also subject to its own conditions. A calculated date arriving does not by itself satisfy other requirements, such as good conduct and any necessary judicial decisions. [1]
Looking at the last page alone is not enough
The sentence calculation sheet must be read together with the documents on which it is based. If the summary of the judgment and the reasoned judgment show different offence names or sentence lengths, that difference must be clarified first. If there are multiple sentences, the aggregation order and each judgment covered by it must be reviewed. It must be possible to show which new document or rule of law gave rise to any change in date between the old and the new sentence calculation sheet.
In practice three separate questions must be answered: Which sentence is being enforced? Which enforcement regime applies to that sentence? Which periods of restriction of liberty imposed earlier have been taken into account in the calculation? If the answer to one of these questions is uncertain, discussing only the result date may conceal the real cause of the dispute.
How is a sentence calculation checked?
A separate calculation line for each judgment
It is useful to begin an enforcement review with a table of judgments in which each final judgment appears on a separate line. The total sentence should not hide the characteristics of individual judgments. Under Article 99 of Law No. 5275 each sentence keeps its independence; aggregation is carried out mainly so that the conditional release provisions can be applied. [1]
| Review area | Document to compare | Possible effect of the error |
|---|---|---|
| Date of the offence and legal nature of the offence | Final judgment, reasoned judgment | Wrong transitional provision or enforcement ratio |
| Amount of the sentence and finality | Operative part of the judgment, finality endorsement | Counting a wrong amount or a sentence that is not yet final |
| Recidivism and special enforcement regime | Judgment and applicable legislation | Extension of a stricter regime to unrelated sentences |
| Crediting of days | Records of apprehension, police custody, pretrial detention and release | Missing reduction, or the same period used twice |
| Aggregation order | Aggregation decision and list of judgments | Adding a missing, duplicate or wrong-stage sentence |
| Date calculation | Detailed calculation breakdown | Error in month, year, leap day or start date |
Enforcement ratio and reduction ratio must be separated
A judgment stating “two-thirds of the sentence is to be served” and one stating “a one-third reduction” may be two different ways of expressing the same relationship. A two-thirds reduction, however, produces a completely different result. The ratio used in an application must be stated clearly as “the portion to be served in the institution” or “the portion deducted”.
Starting from the general rule, the same ratio cannot be used for all offences. Articles 107 and 108 of Law No. 5275, special laws and transitional provisions must be considered together. An online calculation that does not explain the date of the offence, the age of the offender, the nature of the offence and the application of recidivism cannot replace a legal review of the specific file. [1] [3]
Crediting must be verified with documents
Periods of police custody (gözaltı) and detention must be determined day by day, and it must be investigated whether the same period has been used in another calculation. The calculation for the obligation not to leave one's home (konutu terk etmeme tedbiri) is also not the same as detention: under CMK 109/6, every two days spent under this measure are counted as one day. The mere presence of an electronic tag does not show the legal type of the measure; the decision itself must be examined. [3] [6]
When the release date is calculated, crediting (mahsup) must be checked together with how it is reflected in the period that must be served for conditional release. The explanation “detention deducted” may not be sufficient; it must be possible to see how many days between which dates were deducted, and at which stage.
Which points must be considered in the leap-year calculation?
Calendar year and fixed day total are not the same operation
Under TCK 61/6, a day is 24 hours and a month is 30 days; a year is calculated according to the official calendar. This provision does not mean that all calendar operations can be carried out with a single fixed multiplier. The criminal and enforcement regime must be determined first, and then it must be checked how the periods have been placed on the calendar. The calculation for years in which February has 29 days must be explained, and the same leap day must not be deducted again at two separate stages. [3] [5]
The decision of the 1st Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation dated 31 May 2024
In its decision numbered 2023/8221 E., 2024/4058 K., the 1st Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay 1. Ceza Dairesi) examined a sentence calculation sheet containing sentences subject to different enforcement regimes and crediting periods. In its final reasoning the Chamber stated that leap years must be taken into account in favour of the convicted person, and it reversed the decision of the objection authority in the interest of the law. [5]
When reading the decision, the calculation described in the Ministry's request must be separated from the Chamber's own assessment. Not every sentence in the request is a reasoning accepted by the Court of Cassation. The practical lesson of this decision is that, instead of merely stating “no leap-year reduction was made”, an application should show which calendar intervals entered the calculation and what effect they had on the result. Concrete dates in the decision cannot be transferred to another convicted person's file as a ready-made release date.
To which authority is an objection to the sentence calculation sheet made?
Distinction between a calculation dispute and interpretation of the judgment
Article 98/1-b of Law No. 5275 makes the enforcement judgeship competent for doubts about the calculation of the sentence to be served and for claims as to whether the sentence can be enforced wholly or partly. By contrast, under Article 98/1-a, for doubts about the interpretation of a conviction judgment, or for assessing a later-enacted law under TCK 7, the court that delivered the judgment is asked for a decision. [1]
This distinction requires that the statement “there is an error” be made concrete. If a two-year sentence clearly written in the judgment is transferred as three years to the sentence calculation sheet, this is a calculation or record problem. If it is claimed that the offence classification in a final judgment is wrong, the matter may go beyond the limits of the sentence calculation and may be examined through the legal remedies against the judgment or other special procedures, depending on the circumstances. An enforcement application is not a general substitute for a missed appeal or cassation. For separate explanations on reviewing judgments, see appeals in criminal cases and cassation in criminal cases.
Application file and jurisdiction check
A calculation error may also be reported, with its documents, to the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor carrying out the enforcement. However, a request for correction made to the prosecutor does not by itself protect the period for objecting to an enforcement judgeship decision. If a judicial decision exists, the legal remedy against that decision must be pursued separately.
The heading of the application should show the relevant enforcement file, the date and number of the sentence calculation sheet, and the basis of the request. The competent and authorized enforcement judgeship is determined by the place where enforcement is carried out and by the special authority provisions of the law. If aggregation of more than one judgment is requested, the special authority provision in Article 101 of Law No. 5275 must also be considered. [1] [2]
Is there a time limit for objecting to the sentence calculation sheet?
The 15-day period does not apply to the first calculation application
Under Article 5 of Law No. 4675, a complaint must be made within 15 days of learning of the matter and, in any case, within 30 days of the act or procedure. For an application for the calculation of the sentence under Article 98/1-b of Law No. 5275, however, no such limit is set. The legal nature of the application is understood from its subject and request, not from the word “objection” used. [1] [2] [4]
The Yargıtay 1. Ceza Dairesi decision of 7 November 2024, numbered 2024/6621 E., 2024/7422 K., makes this distinction decisive. The Chamber found unlawful a refusal to examine the merits on the ground that 15 days had passed since notification of the sentence calculation sheet. It accepted that no time limit is fixed for a calculation application and reversed the rejection decision in the interest of the law. However, it did not decide that the enforcement ratio requested by the convicted person must necessarily be applied; it corrected the procedural error that prevented the merits of the application from being examined. [4]
This possibility does not justify delaying the correction of an error. If the release date is near, each missing day can have a direct effect on liberty. Where the same petition raises a prison procedure, a disciplinary decision and a calculation dispute together, the time limit for each request must be assessed separately.
The objection to the enforcement judge's decision is two weeks
Under the current Article 6 of Law No. 4675, an objection may be made against the enforcement judge's decision within two weeks of notification. The review is carried out by the heavy penal court (ağır ceza mahkemesi) within the judicial district of the enforcement judgeship. The seven-day period found in older sources should not be treated as the basis for current applications; for decisions made on earlier dates, the entry into force and transitional arrangements of the change must be checked separately. [2]
An objection petition should not merely repeat the first application. The reason for rejection must be shown, and it must be explained with which record or rule of law it is incompatible. In particular, points such as a crediting document that was not evaluated, a wrong date of finality, or the application of recidivism to all sentences must be addressed separately.
Does the application stop enforcement or secure release?
Under Article 98/2 of Law No. 5275 an application does not automatically stop enforcement. The court or the enforcement judgeship may, depending on the circumstances, decide to defer or stay enforcement. The submission of a petition therefore does not justify non-compliance with current enforcement measures. [1]
How is an urgent request justified?
If it is claimed that correcting the miscalculation would legally satisfy the conditions for release, the result of the new calculation must be explained and supporting documents attached. If there is an arrest or enforcement record in another file, its existence must also be taken into account. Completion of a period under one judgment is not always the same as the person being released from all files.
For example, in a purely hypothetical case, it may turn out that 90 days of detention before admission to the institution were credited nowhere. The request should not be left as “deduct 90 days”. Arrest and release orders showing that this period was not counted towards another sentence, together with the effect of the correction on the calculation of conditional release, must be submitted. Other conditions for conditional release are assessed separately; this example contains no promise of automatic release.
How is an effective sentence calculation application prepared?
The link between event, error, document and result
The basic relationship underlying the file is this: a particular calculation item is wrong because of a particular document, and the applicable rule requires a particular correction. If this relationship cannot be established, even a long petition may not be reviewable. Under each heading of error, the existing record, the record said to be correct and the difference in result should be shown side by side.
- The current sentence calculation sheet and earlier versions must be attached.
- Final judgments, finality endorsements and aggregation decisions must be indexed separately.
- Crediting periods must be shown in a chronological table with the source file number.
- The ratio used and the transitional provision applied to each judgment must be stated.
- The requested correction, including a stay of enforcement where necessary and a release request where its conditions are met, must be framed separately.
Limits of the application model
A suitable request structure may consist of examining the calculation dispute, obtaining missing records from the relevant authorities, correcting the unlawful calculation item and preparing a sentence calculation sheet accordingly. If there is a concrete and current risk of loss of liberty, a request for interim protection must be justified separately. Ready-made petitions stating the same date, ratio or authority in every file should not be used.
The views of the administration or the prosecutor must also be assessed. It may be argued that the claimed days have been used in another judgment, that the sentence is subject to a special regime, or that the request goes beyond correcting the calculation and aims to change the final judgment itself. An effective application addresses these possibilities with documents. It is also not appropriate to act on the assumption that an earlier favourable calculation error creates an irrevocable right; in every case a lawful calculation and a reasoned judgment should be requested. [1] [5]
Constitutional review after ordinary applications
Every violation of law in an enforcement calculation does not by itself constitute a constitutional violation. What matters is the effect on the right to liberty and security, how the applicant's claims were assessed, and whether ordinary remedies have been exhausted. An individual application to the AYM is not an ordinary third-stage audit of the calculation. The application period and admissibility conditions must also be observed.
In the General Assembly's decision in Burhan Yaz (3), a deduction of 45 days for 90 days under the obligation not to leave one's home was found proportionate, and no violation was found as to that complaint. The decision shows that every restriction of liberty does not have to be credited at the same rate. The inadmissibility, for expiry of the time limit, of a separate complaint concerning private life also shows that the time limits for different claims must be considered separately. [6]
For the details of this stage, see the articles on individual application to the Constitutional Court in criminal cases and the 30-day period for individual applications.
For related details, see our articles on non-payment of the judicial fine and its conversion into imprisonment and on deferral of enforcement.
How are the items that change in a new sentence calculation sheet tracked?
Comparing the old and new calculation as of the same date
A sentence calculation sheet issued because of a new judgment, a crediting decision or a correction concerning the enforcement regime should not be treated as an output that merely changes the result date of the earlier document. The issue dates of the old and new versions, the judgments they cover and the calculation start dates should be shown side by side. In this way a genuine legal change is separated from an apparent difference arising only from the document having been reissued.
For example, if the earlier document showed 120 days of crediting and the new one shows 90 days, this alone does not prove that 30 days were unlawfully deleted. It must be investigated whether the earlier 30-day portion was transferred to another judgment, whether a duplicate record was corrected, or whether it was in fact omitted. In an application, a third column showing the basis of the change, next to the old and new columns, makes the review easier. This method is a suggestion for reviewing a specific file; it does not mean that legislation prescribes a mandatory form of petition.
Showing imprisonment converted from a fine separately
The fact that direct imprisonment and imprisonment converted from a judicial fine appear in the same document does not mean that both are subject to the same conditional release ratio. Under Articles 99 and 106 of Law No. 5275, the enforcement stage relating to the fine and the special limits must be stated separately. A file at the public-benefit work stage and a file that has reached the stage of enforcement in the institution should not be blended under the same line. The details of this distinction are explained in the review of joint enforcement of multiple prison sentences and imprisonment converted from a fine. [1]
Separating a calculation dispute from the unlawfulness of a procedure
If the petition argues both the calculation in the new sentence calculation sheet and a separate enforcement procedure, the legal nature of each request must be stated. The time-limit regime for a calculation dispute does not remove the time limit for a complaint concerning another procedure. Furthermore, the power to stay or defer under Article 98/2 of Law No. 5275 and the stay linked to a complaint under Article 5 of Law No. 4675 are not the same text. Instead of carrying the conditions of one over to the other without explanation, it should be shown to which application the request for interim protection is attached. [1] [2]
Conclusion
Reviewing a sentence calculation sheet requires that every step from the amount of the sentence to the release date be traceable. Applying to the correct authority, separating the time limits for the first calculation request from those for a judicial decision, and tying every claim to a document are the decisive elements of an effective result. Especially in files involving crediting, different enforcement regimes and leap-year calculation, an evaluation based only on the total period is not sufficient. At the centre of legal protection lies a file that explains the concrete error and its effect on liberty.
For legal support in criminal proceedings and enforcement, you may look at our criminal defence services.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the right to apply lost if 15 days have passed since notification of the sentence calculation sheet?
The 15-day limit does not apply to an application under Article 98/1-b of Law No. 5275 concerning the calculation of the sentence. However, the time limits for complaints and objections against other acts or decisions are assessed separately. [4]
What is the time limit for objecting to an enforcement judgeship decision?
Under the current regulation, it is two weeks from notification. The fact that a first calculation application is not subject to a time limit does not mean that an objection to a judicial decision that has been given is also unlimited. [2]
Does a conditional release date written in the sentence calculation sheet mean a final release?
The date is not the only factor. Good conduct, the applicable enforcement regime, any necessary decisions and records in other files are also examined. A sentence calculation sheet alone does not show that all conditions have been met. [1]
Can the same number of days be deducted for leap years in every file?
No. The period covered by the calculation, the placement of the periods on the calendar, and whether the days have already been counted must be checked. A fixed number of days taken from the text of a decision cannot be applied to all files. [3] [5]
Does enforcement stop when an application is made?
It does not stop automatically. A separate decision on stay or deferral is required. A request for release is also assessed on its own conditions. [1]
Does a petition sent to the prosecutor protect the time limit for objection?
If an enforcement judgeship decision has been issued, an objection must be made separately and in the proper manner. It should not be assumed that a mere request for correction suspends the time limit for legal remedies.
Can compensation be claimed for excess enforcement caused by a calculation error?
The basis of the concrete deprivation of liberty, the nature of the error and the relevant application routes must be examined. A calculation correction and a compensation claim are different proceedings; not every error creates automatic compensation in the same amount. For the relevant framework, see the review of compensation for unjust detention and police custody.
Sources and legal bases
1. Law No. 5275 on the Execution of Criminal Sentences and Security Measures, especially Articles 20, 98–101, 105/A, 107–108 and related transitional provisions; relevant provisions and amendment records.
2. Law No. 4675 on Enforcement Judgeships, especially Articles 4–6; current objection period and entry-into-force footnotes.
3. Law No. 5237, Turkish Penal Code, Articles 7, 61/6, 63; Law No. 5271, Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 109/6.
4. 1st Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, November 7, 2024, 2024/6621 E., 2024/7422 K., reasoning and judgment; official full text on UYAP.
5. 1st Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, May 31, 2024, 2023/8221 E., 2024/4058 K., especially Part II (Reasoning), paragraph 2, and Part III (Judgment); full text verified. The De Jure link may require a login session.
6. Constitutional Court General Assembly, Burhan Yaz (3), Application No. 2021/7919, May 29, 2024, especially §§ 44–49, 51–54 and the judgment.