Legal Glossary

A petition (dilekçe) is a document by which a person communicates a request, objection or complaint in writing to a court, an enforcement office or an administrative authority. In the written procedure, the statement of claim, statement of defense, reply and rejoinder define the framework of the claim and the defense; in the simplified procedure, a reply and a rejoinder cannot be filed. The elements a petition must contain are listed in the relevant statute; a petition that is incomplete, addressed to the wrong authority or filed after the deadline may lead to a loss of rights.

A preclusive period (hak düşürücü süre) is a period within which a right can be exercised and upon whose expiry the right itself comes to an end. Turkish law has no general statutory definition of it; these periods are mostly provided for in special provisions of statutes such as the Turkish Code of Obligations, the Turkish Civil Code and the Turkish Commercial Code, and, according to legal scholarship, may also be agreed by contract. According to settled practice, the judge takes this period into account ex officio; in this respect it differs from the statute of limitations in the law of obligations, which the debtor must invoke.

Procedural capacity is a person’s ability to conduct a civil action on their own behalf and to perform procedural acts validly. It is connected with capacity to act under civil law. Persons who lack procedural capacity act in the action through their legal representatives.

A procedural prerequisite (dava şartı) is a procedural condition that must exist for the court to be able to examine the merits of the dispute. The court examines procedural prerequisites on its own motion at every stage of the proceedings. If the deficiency is capable of being remedied, a firm deadline is given for it to be completed; if it is not or cannot be remedied, the action is dismissed on procedural grounds without a decision on the merits.