The order arrives first, and the criminal file catches up with it.

These files begin in one of two ways. Either the police are called to the flat, or your wife or husband walks into a police station and makes a statement. Within a few hours there are two separate proceedings, and they are decided by different courts, on different material, at very different speeds.

The first is a tedbir kararı — a measure order under Law no. 6284. It is a protection file before the aile mahkemesi, the family court. It is not a charge and it is not a conviction. Nothing has been proved against you.

The second is a criminal investigation before the public prosecutor, usually under TCK 86 for intentional injury, TCK 106 for threat, or TCK 123/A for persistent pursuit.

People consistently worry about the second and underestimate the first. The first is the one that takes you out of your home this week.

Who may ask, and how fast it moves. Under 6284 md. 8, a measure may be requested by the person concerned, by the Ministry, by police officers or by the prosecutor, and it may be requested from the nearest and most easily reached judge, civil administrative authority or police unit. Under 6284 md. 5/2, where delay carries risk, the police chief may himself impose four of the preventive measures — the prohibition on threatening, insulting or humiliating words, immediate removal from the joint home, the prohibition on approaching the protected person and their home, school and workplace, and the prohibition on approaching relatives and witnesses. The papers go to the judge no later than the first working day, and a measure the judge does not confirm within twenty-four hours lapses of its own accord.

Under 6284 md. 8/3, no evidence or document that violence occurred is required for a protective measure order, and a preventive order is to be issued without delay; the law states that its issue may not be delayed in a way that endangers the purpose of the statute. That is why the first you usually hear of the order is the officer at the door.

Under md. 7, anyone may report violence or the danger of it. The person who started the file is not always the person you are married to.

The measures a judge may impose on the person alleged to have used violence are listed in 6284 md. 5. The order served on you will be a selection from this list, identified by subparagraph.

• No words or conduct involving threat, insult, humiliation or belittling toward the protected person.
• Immediate removal from the joint home, and allocation of that home to the protected person. Whose name is on the lease or the title deed does not decide this.
• Not approaching the protected person, or their home, school or workplace.
• Where a contact order for the children already exists, contact may be made subject to an accompanying person, restricted, or removed entirely.
• Not approaching relatives and witnesses, and — save for contact arrangements — the children.
• Not damaging personal or household possessions. Not disturbing the protected person by telephone, messaging or any other means.
• Surrendering to the police any weapon lawfully held or carried.
• Not using alcohol or narcotics where the protected person is, and, where there is dependency, examination and treatment including admission to hospital.

Alongside these, under md. 5/3 the judge may decide custody, guardianship, maintenance and contact under the Turkish Civil Code, and under md. 5/4 may order interim maintenance even where none has been requested, where the person against whom the order is made is the one who supports the household.

Under md. 12, a judge may order the use of technical means to monitor compliance. The same provision forbids listening to, watching or recording anyone's voice or image by that route.

Under md. 20, applications under this law and the enforcement of orders made under it carry no litigation costs, no court fee and no postal charge under any name. The cost of applying is nothing, which is part of why these orders are numerous.

Two weeks is the whole of the objection period. It runs from service, whether or not you have understood the document served.

TCK 86/1. Intentionally causing pain to the body of another, or the deterioration of another's health or capacity to perceive: one year six months to three years of imprisonment.

TCK 86/2. Where the effect of the injury on the person is slight, to the extent that it can be remedied by a simple medical intervention, the offence is punished on the complaint of the victim with six months to one year six months of imprisonment or a judicial fine. Where the offence is committed against a woman, the lower limit may not be less than nine months.

TCK 86/3. Where the act is committed against a spouse, a divorced spouse, an ascendant, a descendant or a sibling, two things change at the same moment. No complaint is required, and the sentence to be imposed is increased by half. The same paragraph covers acts committed with a weapon, against a person unable to defend themselves, and by abuse of public office; where the act is committed with a feral instinct (canavarca hisle), the increase is one-fold.

TCK 87 — aggravated consequences. Where the injury causes the permanent weakening of the function of a sense or organ, permanent difficulty in speech, a fixed scar on the face, or a condition endangering life, the sentence determined under TCK 86 is increased one-fold and may not be less than four years, or six years where the case falls under TCK 86/3. Where it causes an incurable illness, the loss of a sense or organ, the loss of the capacity to speak or to have children, or permanent alteration of the face, the increase is two-fold, with floors of six and nine years. A bone fracture or dislocation increases the sentence by up to half, according to its effect on the functions of life. Where death results, the range is ten to fourteen years, and fourteen to eighteen years in cases under the third paragraph.

TCK 106/1 — threat. Threatening a person with an attack on the life, bodily integrity or sexual integrity of that person or a relative: six months to two years; where committed against a woman, the lower limit may not be less than nine months. A threat of serious damage to property or of some other harm carries two to six months or a judicial fine, on complaint. Where the threat is made with a weapon, anonymously or by concealing identity, by several persons together, or by exploiting the fear created by a criminal organisation, the range is two to seven years.

TCK 123/A — persistent pursuit. Persistently following someone physically, or attempting contact through communications, information systems or third parties, so as to cause serious disquiet or fear for their safety: six months to two years. It rises to one to three years where committed against a child, against a spouse from whom separation has been ordered or a divorced spouse, or by a person already subject to a removal order or an order not to approach the home, school or workplace. The offence is prosecuted on complaint.

TCK 232/1 — ill-treatment of a person with whom you live in the same home: two months to one year.

Three different things can restrict your liberty in this situation, and they come from three different laws. They are frequently confused with one another.

Remand — tutuklama. Under CMK 100/4, no detention order may be made for offences carrying only a judicial fine, or where the upper limit of imprisonment is not more than two years — except for offences committed intentionally against bodily integrity. Assault is the express exception. Beyond that, CMK 100/3 lists the offences for which a ground of detention may be presumed on strong suspicion resting on concrete evidence, and since the amendment of 12 May 2022 that list expressly includes intentional injury committed against a woman. Aggravated injury under TCK 87 is in the same list. This is why remand appears on the table in files that the person concerned had regarded as a domestic argument.

Coercive detention — zorlama hapsi. Under 6284 md. 13, a person who acts contrary to the requirements of a measure order is subject, by decision of the judge, to three to ten days of coercive detention according to the nature of the measure breached and the gravity of the breach — even where the act also constitutes a criminal offence. On each repetition the range is fifteen to thirty days, and the total may not exceed six months. Under md. 8/5, you are warned of this when the order is served on you.

Leaving the country. A 6284 order does not by itself stop you leaving Türkiye. Judicial control does. Under CMK 109/3-a, a prohibition on leaving the country is one of the obligations a judge may impose instead of remand, alongside reporting at set intervals, not leaving the home or a defined area, not going to specified places, and surrendering weapons. It is imposed at the beginning of the file, and it is discovered at the airport by people who did not read the decision handed to them.

• The order itself, read line by line, inside two weeks. Which subparagraphs of md. 5 were imposed, for how long, on whose application, and on what material. The objection under md. 9 is the only route against it, and it closes fourteen days after service.
• The medical report. Whether the effect of the injury can be remedied by a simple medical intervention is the line that moves the file between TCK 86/2 and TCK 86/1. It is a medical finding, and like any medical finding it can be examined, questioned and made the subject of a further report.
• Your own report, if there is anything to record. In a mutual altercation there is often only one report, because only one person went to a hospital. Injuries are evidence only where they are documented, and they stop being documentable within days.
• The messages, complete and in order. A selection of screenshots reads one way and the full thread frequently reads another. Preserve the devices. Deleting a conversation removes your side of it, not the other.
• The chronology. A measure applied for on the eve of a divorce petition, a custody dispute or a dispute over property sits differently from one that follows an incident. That is not an accusation against anyone; it is a sequence of dates, and dates are evidence.
• Whether the arithmetic leaves room for HAGB. Under CMK 231/5, the deferral of the pronouncement of judgment is available where the sentence imposed is two years or less, and under md. 6 it requires no previous conviction for an intentional offence, a finding that you will not reoffend, and full reparation of the damage; the supervision period is five years. Note what that means here: a TCK 86/1 case against a spouse starts at one year six months and is increased by half under TCK 86/3, which is two years three months before anything else is considered.

Your residence permit. If you are in Türkiye on a family residence permit obtained through your spouse under Law no. 6458 md. 34, that permit is granted for periods of up to three years and can never exceed the sponsor's own permit. Under md. 36 it is refused, cancelled or not extended where its conditions cease or fall away, or where there is a valid deportation decision or entry ban against you. A criminal file does not cancel it by itself. The end of the marriage can.

Where the foreign spouse is the one being harmed. Under 6458 md. 34/6, a foreigner married to a Turkish citizen may be granted a short-term residence permit after divorce, on condition of having held the family residence permit for at least three years. Where the foreign spouse's victimhood through domestic violence is established by a decision of the relevant court, the three-year condition is not required. Under md. 55/1-d, no deportation decision is made in respect of victims of psychological, physical or sexual violence until their treatment is complete. If you are the foreigner and you are the person being harmed, those two provisions are the reason to have the matter recorded rather than to leave the country quietly.

Deportation. Under 6458 md. 54, a deportation decision is taken in respect of, among others, foreigners assessed as requiring deportation under Article 59 of the Turkish Criminal Code, and those constituting a threat to public order, public security or public health under md. 54/1-d. That last assessment is administrative. It is made by the immigration authority on its own record, and it does not wait for the criminal court to reach a verdict.

Language, and the gap between the two files. In the criminal file, CMK 202 requires the court to appoint an interpreter where the accused or the victim does not know Turkish well enough to express themselves, and the same applies to a suspect, victim or witness heard during the investigation, where the interpreter is appointed by the judge or the prosecutor. The 6284 measure is a different proceeding, decided by a family court under civil procedure, where the interpreter provision in HMK 263 is written for witnesses. Do not assume the two give you the same guarantee. The order will be served on you in Turkish, and the fourteen days run from that service.

Your consulate. Under CMK 95/2, where the person arrested or taken into custody is a foreign national, the consulate of the state of which they are a citizen is notified of the position unless the person objects in writing. A consulate does not defend you and cannot intervene in the proceedings. It can confirm where you are and that you are alive, which is usually what a family abroad needs first.

What this page cannot tell you. It cannot tell you whether the order against you will be lifted on objection, what the file actually contains, or whether the injury in your case falls above or below the line in TCK 86/2. Those depend on documents nobody has shown us. What can be said generally is which deadline is short, and it is the one in 6284 md. 9.