Legal Glossary

Capacity to be a party (taraf ehliyeti) is a person’s ability to be a claimant or respondent in a civil action. It is the procedural-law counterpart of the capacity to hold rights under civil law. Natural persons and legal entities recognized by law have capacity to be a party; special provisions may allow certain communities to be a party to a limited extent.

Compensation is the redress of the loss suffered by a person, usually by the payment of money, by the person who is legally held responsible for it. Liability mostly arises from a tort (Article 49 et seq. of the Turkish Code of Obligations) or from breach of contract (Article 112 et seq.); in certain cases provided by law, lawful conduct may also require compensation. Pecuniary damages cover the reduction in assets and the loss of earnings, while non-pecuniary damages compensate for the non-material harm arising from injury to bodily integrity or to a personality right.

A consumer transaction (tüketici işlemi) is a contract or legal act concluded between a consumer and a natural or legal person acting for commercial or professional purposes. What is decisive is not the name of the transaction but the status of the parties and the purpose for which the goods or services are acquired. Provisions specific to consumers on jurisdiction, applications, mediation and protection may apply.

A contract is a legal transaction formed by the mutual and corresponding declarations of intent of the parties. The parties may freely determine the content of a contract within the limits of the law. Contracts that violate mandatory provisions of law, morality, public order or personality rights, or whose subject matter is impossible, are null and void under Article 27 of the Turkish Code of Obligations (TBK); partial invalidity is assessed separately.

A contractual penalty (ceza koşulu) is a predetermined performance that the debtor undertakes to pay if the obligation is not performed at all or is not performed properly. To claim a valid contractual penalty, it is not necessary that damage has occurred; this institution secures performance. Its type, its relationship to the principal obligation, fault, excessiveness and special commercial-law provisions are examined in the specific case.

A court-appointed expert is a person who gives the court an opinion on matters whose resolution requires special or technical knowledge outside the law. The expert does not take the judge’s place, cannot make legal characterizations and cannot decide the outcome of the dispute. The report is evaluated by the court together with the other evidence.