Case Deferred, Never Convicted: does it show on a Turkish criminal record certificate?

Two conditions have to be met before anything appears in the Turkish judicial record, the adli sicil. There has to be a judgment of conviction, and it has to be final. Law no. 5352 art. 4 is built around exactly that: final judgments of conviction handed down by Turkish courts, against citizens and foreign nationals alike, together with judicial fines, alternative sanctions imposed in place of a short prison sentence, and the steps in a sentence's execution. Art. 5 keeps three categories out altogether: disciplinary and purely military offences, orders for disciplinary or coercive detention, and administrative fines.

A deferred prosecution is not on that list and cannot be. The prosecutor has decided not to bring the case; no court has tried you, and no sentence exists. If the deferral period passes without a fresh intentional offence, CMK 171/4 requires a decision that there are no grounds for prosecution. Nothing is entered, and nothing reaches the archive record either, because the archive is fed under art. 9 by entries leaving the judicial record once a sentence has been executed.

The two deferrals in that table are constantly mixed up. Deferral of the prosecution is the prosecutor's decision, taken before any trial; deferral of the judgment — HAGB — is the court's decision at the end of one, and its ceilings and conditions are set out in the note on suspended sentences and HAGB. Mediation is a third route to the same blank certificate: under CMK 253/19 performance at once produces a decision of no grounds for prosecution, and deferred performance produces a deferral in which the CMK 171 conditions are expressly not required, as set out under criminal mediation.

Under CMK 171/2 the prosecutor may defer bringing a prosecution for five years where the offence carries an upper limit of three years' imprisonment or less and falls outside the mediation and advance-payment schemes. CMK 171/3 sets four conditions that must all be present: no previous conviction to imprisonment for an intentional offence; a view formed from the investigation that you will refrain from offending; that deferral serves you and society better than a prosecution; and full repair of the loss caused to the victim or to the public, by restitution, restoration or compensation. CMK 171/6 excludes organisation offences, offences by or against public officials by reason of the office, and offences against sexual inviolability.

Within the five years a fresh intentional offence opens the prosecution, and limitation does not run in the meantime. That is the whole exposure: nothing to serve, nothing on the certificate, and five years in which the file can be revived.

Drug use files run on their own rule. Where the investigation is under TCK 191, deferral is not discretionary. TCK 191/2 requires a five-year deferral, expressly without the CMK 171 conditions being sought. TCK 191/3 imposes probation for at least one year, which the prosecutor may extend in six-month steps by up to two further years, with referral for testing at least twice a year and treatment where it is considered necessary. Comply throughout and TCK 191/7 ends the file with a decision of no grounds for prosecution; breach the obligations, or acquire or use again, and TCK 191/4 opens the case, after which TCK 191/6 bars a second deferral for a repeat of the same offence. What one to three years of supervision means for someone who does not live in Türkiye is set out on the page on drug offences and personal use.

Deferral decisions are not unrecorded. CMK 171/5 provides that they are entered in a system reserved for them, and that those entries may be used only where a prosecutor, judge or court requests them in connection with an investigation or prosecution. Law no. 5352 art. 6 says the same from the records side: decisions deferring a prosecution, and deferred judgments, are recorded so as to be released only on the request of a court, judge or public prosecutor's office in connection with an investigation or prosecution. CMK 158/6 does the same for a decision that no investigation will be opened at all.

Set that against the two ordinary records. Judicial record information is given, on a stated purpose, to the person or to an attorney expressly authorised in the power of attorney, and to public bodies and professional bodies (art. 7). Archive information may be requested by the person or that attorney, by prosecutors, judges and courts within an investigation, by electoral boards, and by public bodies where a special law says so (art. 10). Law enforcement may query either record only with the approval of the Minister of Justice (art. 13/1-b), and you may query your own through secure identity authentication (art. 13/2).

None of those routes reaches the deferral register. A residence-permit officer, an employer, a consulate or a bank asking for your Turkish record receives a certificate built from art. 4 entries and, if requested, the archive. A deferred file is in neither.

Three things survive an empty certificate, and each has caught people out.

• The question you are asked is wider than the record. Visa and immigration forms ask whether you have been arrested, detained, charged or investigated, not whether you hold a conviction. The certificate answers one question; the form asks another, and the form is answered by you.
• The migration file is decided separately. Under Law no. 6458 art. 54/1 a deportation decision is taken about the foreigners the paragraph lists, and at (d) that includes a foreign national assessed as a threat to public order, public security or public health. The discretion lies in that assessment, not in whether a decision follows it. That assessment does not require a conviction; the position is set out under deportation and entry bans.
• The five years are live. Until they expire the file is not closed, a fresh intentional offence revives it, and limitation is frozen throughout. A deferral granted in year one can still become a prosecution in year four.

Where there was a conviction the timetable is different again. The entry sits in the judicial record until the sentence has been executed, then moves to the archive under art. 9, and art. 12 erases the archive entry five years after the conditions for archiving arose, or after fifteen or thirty years where the conviction carries a disqualification under a law outside the Penal Code. Which of those describes your file, and how to obtain both certificates from abroad with an apostille and a certified translation, is set out on the page on the Turkish criminal record and archive record. Read your own record before you rely on anyone's description of it, including this one.