Revocation of conditional release is a judicial decision that may lead to the convict’s return to a penal institution and to the full enforcement of the period set by law. Under the current regulation there are two main grounds: committing an intentional offense punishable by imprisonment during the supervision period, or persisting in non-compliance with obligations despite a warning from the enforcement judge. Not every negative conduct, investigation or notification automatically leads to revocation.[1]
In practice, the process referred to as “burning of conditional release” (şartlı tahliyenin yanması) requires the most important review: linking dates and decisions. The conditional release date, the end of the supervision period, the date of the new offense, the finality of the new judgment and the earned release date must each be determined separately. The full enforcement period is also calculated according to the ground for revocation and the law applicable to that period.
Why does it matter which decision is revoked?
Conditional release and supervised release are different stages
Under Article 105/A of Law No. 5275 on the Execution of Penalties and Security Measures (5275 sayılı Ceza ve Güvenlik Tedbirlerinin İnfazı Hakkında Kanun), supervised release means that the sentence is served outside the institution, before the conditional release date. Being sent to an open penal institution because of a breach during this period is not the same process as revocation of conditional release under Article 107.[1]
The two regimes differ in their new-offense and breach rules and in their decision procedures. For example, the conditions for assessing a new public prosecution under Article 105/A cannot replace the review of conviction under Article 107. In an objection petition, the legal provision on which the decision rests must be made clear before the date and number of the decision.
Lifting an obligation does not mean the supervision period has ended
The enforcement judge may decide under Article 107/10 that the supervision period passes without obligations being set, or that set obligations are lifted. This does not mean that all legal consequences tied to conditional release end automatically. Whether the supervision period continues for the new intentional offense must be determined separately.[1]
Therefore, the end of an obligation to sign or to attend a program and the sentence being regarded as enforced do not have to fall on the same date. Each document given to the convict must be read in terms of the decision and the period on which it rests.
Conditions for revocation due to a new offense
The new offense must have been committed during the supervision period
Article 107/12 is based on an intentional offense punishable by imprisonment committed during the supervision period. The decisive date is the date on which the offense was committed, not the date on which the new conviction was rendered. A conviction that becomes final after the supervision period has ended may relate to an offense committed during the supervision period. By contrast, merely issuing the decision during the supervision period does not satisfy this condition for an offense committed earlier.[1]
The distinction between negligent and intentional offenses is also important. The intentional-offense requirement of the law cannot be extended to cover every type of conviction. If the offense date is disputed or there is more than one act, the act to which the final judgment relates must be examined.
A criminal accusation and a final judgment must be kept apart
In a revocation review, an investigation record or a criminal complaint alone cannot be considered sufficient. The legal nature of the judgment given for the new offense, the status of the prison conviction and its finality must be obtained for the file. The prison-conviction requirement in Article 107/15 does not allow the enforcement judgeship to replace the trial for the new offense and determine guilt.[1][2]
A judicial fine, the deferment of the pronouncement of judgment and a suspended prison sentence (ertelenmiş hapis cezası) are different institutions. Grouping them under the phrase “I was sentenced” is misleading. In particular, deferment is not a decision that in every case eliminates the legal existence of a prison conviction. The consequences of the specific new judgment must be examined under the rules of the relevant regime.
Are the supervision period and the earned release date the same?
The current rule and the former regulation are calculated separately
Under the current Article 107/6, the supervision period equals the time that must be spent in the institution under the relevant paragraphs; in fixed-term sentences the earned release date cannot be exceeded. The former regulation contained a calculation based on half of the sentence. Therefore, in older files the end of the supervision period and the earned release date may differ.[1]
The general statement “it is enough that a new offense was committed before the earned release date” leads to error if the supervision period is not examined separately. First the law applicable to the period and the supervision period must be determined; then it must be determined whether the new offense falls within that interval.
A more favorable law cannot be assembled from selected parts
Article 7 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) separates the application in time for conditional release and recidivism from the general enforcement rules. The more favorable law must be assessed by comparing the concrete outcomes of the linked provisions in the case at hand. A shorter institutional period under the new law and a shorter supervision period under the old law cannot be combined as independent advantages.[3]
The Court of Cassation (Yargıtay) 1st Criminal Chamber addressed this problem directly in its decision E. 2024/6836, K. 2025/6957, October 10, 2025. The Chamber held that the supervision period of a convict conditionally released in 2021 under the post-2020 regime had to be assessed under the new regime, and it quashed the rejection of the revocation request. The decision shows that the new regime is not necessarily more favorable in every file, but that the linked rules must be assessed together.[5]
Revocation due to breach of obligations
The enforcement judge’s warning and the persistence requirement
Under Article 107/12, a single act contrary to an obligation and persistence in non-compliance are not the same thing. The law requires that the non-compliance continue despite a warning from the enforcement judge. The file must show separately: the content of the obligation, its notification to the convict, the determination of the breach, the judge’s warning and the conduct that continued despite it.[1]
Rules on a specified number of breaches discussed in the application of Article 105/A must not be transferred to Article 107 without examining the legal basis. The legal criterion here is an applicable obligation and persistence despite the judge’s warning. If there is a claim of illness, an access restriction (erişim engeli) or an incorrect notification, documents for the relevant date of the concrete case are required.
Applicability and excuse are assessed together
Where the convict’s working hours, treatment program or caregiving responsibilities conflict with the obligations, a request for appropriate adjustment must be submitted in good time. Such a request does not by itself lift the existing obligation. However, a genuine obstacle brought to the administration’s attention cannot be disregarded in the legal assessment of the breach.
In the objection, specific reasons must be given for which day and which obligation could not be performed, rather than general statements. It matters that a health record shows the actual obstacle on the relevant date, not merely the diagnosis. If it is claimed that the warning was not served, the service record must be expressly requested.
How is the full enforcement period determined in case of revocation?
Current calculation for a new offense
Under Article 107/13-a, for each subsequent offense, a period equal to twice the prison sentence imposed for that offense is enforced in full, starting from the date of the subsequent offense and provided it does not exceed the earned release date. The current rule does not in every case mean full enforcement of the remaining sentence.[1]
Hypothetically, if a five-month prison sentence is imposed for a new offense, the starting figure of the double calculation is ten months. However, the upper limit between the date of the new offense and the earned release date must also be examined separately. This example explains only the method of calculation, on the assumption that there is no other offense, no different legal period and no other judgment. The final-day calculation is made on the basis of final judgments.
If there is more than one new offense, the date and prison sentence of each offense should be shown on a separate line. Reducing the starting points and upper limits to a single sum without reasons makes review harder. The prison sentence for the new offense and the related revocation consequence for the earlier judgment are separate legal items.
In breach of obligations, the period is set at discretion
Article 107/13-b regulates the full enforcement of a period determined according to the nature of the breach, not exceeding the time between the date of non-compliance and the earned release date. Therefore, the “twice” formula for new offenses cannot be applied directly to a breach of obligations.[1]
The reasoning for the discretion must relate to the nature of the non-compliance and to the concrete file. Choosing the entire remaining period without explaining why the most severe result is considered necessary may raise a question of reasoning that should be raised in the objection.
Conditional release again on the same judgment
After a revocation decision, no further conditional release decision is given for the enforcement of the same judgment. This restriction should not be described as a general lifelong ban applying to all of the person’s other judgments. The enforcement regime of each judgment and the special restrictions in the law are assessed separately.[1]
Which authority decides, and how is an objection made?
Determining the competent authority for revocation
Article 107/15 makes the enforcement judgeship at the place of the first-instance court that rendered the judgment competent as a rule. Where sentences have been aggregated, or where the judgment was rendered by a regional appellate court or the Court of Cassation, the determination under Article 101/2 applies. This authority may not be the same enforcement judgeship that made the first conditional release decision in every file.[1]
Instead of determining competence automatically from the convict’s current address or institution, the judgment on which the revoked conditional release is based, and the aggregation decision if one exists, should be placed in the file.
Objection and request for suspension
An objection may be made to the enforcement judge’s decision before the competent High Criminal Court (ağır ceza mahkemesi) within two weeks of notification. The objection is submitted to the judgeship that rendered the decision and forwarded to the competent authority. Filing an objection does not automatically suspend enforcement; a request for suspension and its concrete grounds must be stated separately.[4][8]
| Issue in dispute | Priority document | How the objection is framed |
|---|---|---|
| New offense outside the supervision period | Release decision, supervision calculation, new judgment | Shows which boundary the offense date falls outside of. |
| Nature of the new conviction | Full judgment and finality annotation | Separates the allegation, the conviction and the type of sanction. |
| Absence of warning or persistence | Obligation decision, warning and service record | Explains the missing stage and its effect on the outcome. |
| Enforcement period wrongly set | Calculation by date and by sentence | Reviews the starting point, the doubling and the upper limit separately. |
| Favorable law not applied | Old decision, new judgment and comparison | Separates adaptation from mere correction of the sentence calculation sheet (müddetname). |
What do Constitutional Court decisions say about application strategy?
Harun Müsellim and the non-restarting of the application period
In the decision of the First Section of the Constitutional Court (AYM) in Harun Müsellim, Application No. 2022/60278, December 18, 2024, it was assessed that complaints about a revocation decision learned of in 2015 cannot be made subject to a new time limit through subsequent enforcement applications and applications for reversal in the interest of the law (kanun yararına bozma). The complaint concerning the right to liberty and security was declared inadmissible for expiry of the time limit. The part concerning the right to a fair trial was linked to lack of jurisdiction ratione materiae, because of the nature of the enforcement dispute examined.[6]
The decision cannot be read as holding that the revocation period was substantively correct. It is a decision on the route of application and on admissibility. Sending the same petition to different authorities does not cure the time-limit problem arising from learning of the first decision.
Nehir Aydıncı and the need to review the adaptation decision first
In the decision of the First Section of the Constitutional Court (AYM) in Nehir Aydıncı, Application No. 2023/86815, March 11, 2026, the applicant asked for the period previously enforced under the 2020 amendment to be set off against another sentence. The Court found the new regulation favorable in principle, but noted that the rejection of the earlier adaptation request had not been objected to and that there was no court decision establishing excess enforcement. It found no arbitrariness or manifest error of assessment in respect of the set-off dispute and held the application manifestly ill-founded.[7]
The outcome of this decision is not that “the favorable law is not applied”. Likewise, the Court’s statement is not a direct release or set-off decision. The lesson for practice is that a request for adaptation and a later set-off request are separate proceedings. It should not be assumed that the result will be reached through the second step alone, without the first decision being reviewed at the time.
For the individual application stage, preparation of a Constitutional Court application in criminal cases and the 30-day application period, calculated from learning, UYAP and UETS records should be considered together.
For related details, you may also refer to our article on supervised release breach and return to prison.
If the conditional release decision was not notified, is revocation possible?
Which documents did the Court of Cassation rely on in decision No. 2025/7414?
In its decision of October 24, 2025, E.2025/434, K.2025/7414, the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay) 1st Criminal Chamber discussed the fact that the conditional release decision had not been separately notified to the convict. In the file, the sentence calculation sheet notified to the convict showed the conditional release and earned release dates; the supervised release decision also stated expressly up to which conditional release date the sentence would be enforced in this manner. The supervised release ended on that date, and the enforcement judgeship issued a conditional release decision effective from the same date. [9]
In light of these documents, the Chamber found that the convict could not claim to have been unaware of the conditional release. The request for reversal in the interest of the law, which argued that revocation and full enforcement were not possible solely because the release decision had not been separately notified, was rejected. The decision should not be extended to mean that a lack of notification is of no importance in any case. The outcome was built on concrete documents and practices showing that the convict knew the enforcement calendar. [9]
What is examined if the date in the sentence calculation sheet later changed?
If the file contains situations such as the absence of a notification record for the sentence calculation sheet, the postponement of the actual release on disciplinary grounds, or a decision given on a date different from that in the earlier calculation document, these must be discussed separately. If the date shown in the earlier document differs from the start of the decision in force, it must be shown from which date and in what legal status the convict was informed. The existence of such a difference does not by itself invalidate the revocation decision; but it determines whether the facts of decision No. 2025/7414 are present in the concrete file.
In preparing the objection, not only the service receipt (mazbata) for the release decision but also the notification of the sentence calculation sheet, the decision assigning the convict to supervised release, the directorate closing records and the institution’s release documents should be requested together. If one of the documents is missing, it should be explained what information the others contain. Instead of a general statement of defense such as “I knew nothing,” it should be stated which notification was not made and which element of the dispute this affects.
How should the chronology of the file and the final request be prepared?
Determining the legal stage with six documents
The initial conviction judgment and its finality endorsement, the conditional release decision, the sentence calculation sheet valid on that date, the judgment given for the new offense and its finality record, the revocation decision and the service documents must be examined together. If a breach of obligations is relied on, the obligation decision, the enforcement judge’s warning and the breach records are added. When it is written separately which legal fact each document shows, the dispute over the calculation and the objection directed at the merits of the decision are kept apart.
In a hypothetical file, there may be two years between the date on which the new offense was committed and the date on which the conviction became final. In examining whether the person remained within the supervision period, the offense date is used; the finality of the judgment, on the other hand, shows the legal status of the new prison conviction. Confusing these two dates may lead both to a wrongful revocation and to an unfounded objection. [1]
A more favorable regulation, a calculation error and a new decision are different requests
A claim that there is an arithmetical error under the provision in force is not the same as a claim that the judgment must be adapted to the new law. The process in the Constitutional Court’s Nehir Aydıncı decision shows the importance of this distinction for the routes of application. If the rejection of the adaptation request was not reviewed in time, a later request for set-off against another sentence does not automatically take the place of the same legal review. [7]
When the revocation decision is lifted or the period of full enforcement is changed, it must also be monitored that a new sentence calculation sheet is prepared accordingly. If there is an inconsistency among the enforceable judgment (ilam), the revocation decision and the calculation document, it is explained which part of which document needs to be corrected. For a detailed review of the calculation, the article on objection to the sentence calculation sheet and correction of the enforcement calculation is complementary.
Conclusion
Effective legal protection against the revocation of conditional release begins with correctly identifying the regime on which the decision rests. The supervision period, the date of the new offense, the final judgment, the warning and the full-enforcement calculation must each be examined separately. The strength of an application comes not only from the outcome requested but from showing the error with documents and statutory provisions. Protecting the time limits for objection and for individual application is an inseparable part of this review. For details on the subject, see enforcement regulations, date of offense and transitional provisions.
For legal support in criminal proceedings and enforcement processes, you may review our criminal law services.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does every new investigation lead to the revocation of conditional release?
No. For Article 107, an investigation record alone is not sufficient. The nature of the new offense, its date within the supervision period and the legal status of the prison conviction are examined.
Is a negligent offense a ground for revocation?
The new-offense ground in Article 107/12 relates to intentional offenses. A negligent offense cannot take the place of this condition. Whether there is another ground for revocation in the file is assessed separately.
What happens if a new conviction becomes final after the supervision period has ended?
The date on which the offense was committed is what matters. The later finality of an offense committed during the supervision period does not by itself prevent a revocation review.
When the signature obligation ends, does the supervision period end too?
Not always. Lifting a specific obligation and the end of the supervision period under Article 107 are different things.
In case of revocation, is the entire remaining sentence served?
Under the current new-offense rule, the upper limit of twice the prison sentence for each offense and the earned release date are taken into account. The period under the former law and the question of favorable application are also examined separately.
Is there also a double-period rule for breach of obligations?
No. In that case a period is set, within the date limit of Article 107/13-b, according to the nature of the breach.
What is the time limit for objecting to a revocation decision?
It is two weeks from notification of the enforcement judge’s decision. The notification document should be taken from the file and the period tracked separately.
Does an application for reversal in the interest of the law restart the Constitutional Court time limit?
As a rule, no. The Harun Müsellim decision shows that later applications do not cure the time-limit problem for an earlier decision.
Sources and legal bases
- Law No. 5275 on the Execution of Penalties and Security Measures (5275 sayılı Ceza ve Güvenlik Tedbirlerinin İnfazı Hakkında Kanun), Articles 98, 101, 105/A and 107. Reviewed: October 14, 2026.
- Turkish Penal Code (5237 sayılı Türk Ceza Kanunu), Articles 50–51 and the provisions relating to the sanction nature of a final judgment. Reviewed: October 14, 2026.
- Turkish Penal Code (5237 sayılı Türk Ceza Kanunu), Article 7. Reviewed: October 14, 2026.
- Law No. 4675 on Enforcement Judgeships (4675 sayılı İnfaz Hâkimliği Kanunu), Article 6. Reviewed: October 14, 2026.
- Court of Cassation 1st Criminal Chamber (Yargıtay 1. Ceza Dairesi), E. 2024/6836, K. 2025/6957, October 10, 2025, Section II (Reasoning) and Section III (Ruling).
- Constitutional Court (AYM), Harun Müsellim, Application No. 2022/60278, December 18, 2024, evaluation and ruling.
- Constitutional Court (AYM), Nehir Aydıncı, Application No. 2023/86815, March 11, 2026, especially paras. 17–22 and the ruling.
- Law No. 5271 on Criminal Procedure (5271 sayılı Ceza Muhakemesi Kanunu), Articles 267–271, especially Article 269. Reviewed: October 14, 2026.
- Court of Cassation 1st Criminal Chamber (Yargıtay 1. Ceza Dairesi), E.2025/434, K.2025/7414, October 24, 2025. Sections II and III; effect of the notification of the sentence calculation sheet and of the supervised release decision. Full text reviewed; access may require a login.