A Turkish Court Gave You Two Weeks to Answer in Writing: The Simplified Trial Procedure

In an ordinary Turkish criminal case the sequence is familiar. Under CMK 175/1 the acceptance of the indictment opens the prosecution phase; the court then fixes a hearing date (CMK 175/2) and serves the indictment together with a summons, the çağrı kâğıdı (CMK 176/1), leaving at least a week between service and the hearing (CMK 176/4). The summons to a defendant who is not in custody warns that an unexcused absence leads to compelled attendance (CMK 176/2).

The simplified procedure removes the hearing from that sequence. After accepting the indictment, the asliye ceza mahkemesi, the single-judge criminal court, may decide to apply CMK 251 where the offence requires a judicial fine and/or imprisonment with an upper limit of two years or less (CMK 251/1). The indictment is then served on the defendant, the victim and the complainant with a request that they submit their statements and defence in writing within two weeks, and the notice must say that judgment may be given without a hearing (CMK 251/2). No summons, no courtroom date, only a deadline.

The two-year ceiling is measured against the upper limit written in the offence. Insult under TCK 125/1 carries three months to two years or a judicial fine, so it qualifies. So do simple intentional injury that a basic medical intervention can remedy under TCK 86/2 (six months to one year six months, or a fine), a threat against life or bodily integrity under TCK 106/1 (six months to two years), and driving while unfit through alcohol or drugs under TCK 179/3 (six months to two years). Basic intentional injury under TCK 86/1, at one year six months to three years, and basic theft under TCK 141, at one to three years, fall outside it and go to an ordinary hearing.

Three limits sit around the scope. The procedure is not applied to children, to defendants with a mental illness, or to offences whose investigation or prosecution depends on a permission or a request (CMK 251/7); a Constitutional Court decision of 5 November 2024 removed the deaf-and-mute exclusion that used to stand in the same paragraph. It is not applied where an offence inside the scope was committed together with one outside it (CMK 251/8). And once the court has fixed a hearing date under CMK 175/2, it cannot switch to the simplified route (CMK 251/1, second sentence, added in 2021). The word in the statute is may: applying the procedure is the court's choice, and until judgment the court can open a hearing at any stage and continue under the general rules (CMK 251/6).

One detail trips up people who read older guides. The period was fifteen days until Law 7499 of 2 March 2024 changed it to two weeks. The difference is a day, but the notice you hold says two weeks, and that is the figure that binds.

Service of court documents, tebligat, follows the Notification Act unless the CMK says otherwise (CMK 37/1). For a defendant abroad the default route is the one in Notification Act (7201) Article 25: the document is served through the competent authority of the country you are in, and where a treaty or that country's law allows, the Turkish embassy or consulate asks that authority to carry it out; the papers travel from the court through the Ministry of Justice and the Foreign Ministry to the mission. Where an international treaty accepts direct transmission, CMK 37/2 lets the court post the document to you by registered mail with a return receipt, or use other means of communication. Either way, the two weeks in CMK 251/2 run from the service of the indictment, not from a phone call or an e-mail that tells you a case exists. Keep the envelope and whatever delivery record came with it: the date on it is the start of the clock.

If a Turkish lawyer already holds your power of attorney, vekâletname, on the file, the picture changes. In matters followed through counsel, service is made to the lawyer (Notification Act Article 11/1), and the period runs from the lawyer's receipt in Türkiye rather than from a consular chain that can take months. Article 11 reserves the CMK's own rules on serving decisions on defendants, and under CMK 35/2 a decision that is open to a legal remedy is served on a party who was not present when it was given, so the judgment itself will still be sent to you. The indictment and the two-week notice, however, can reach the file through your lawyer, and that is the single step that converts a case you would otherwise hear about too late into one you can actually answer.

Where service abroad fails or is defective and you first learn of the case from the judgment, the remedy is the objection described below. Every judgment must state the remedy available against it, its period and the authority that hears it (CMK 34/2), and a simplified judgment must in addition set out the objection procedure and its consequences (CMK 251/5). Read that part of the judgment first.

In this procedure the written defence is not a preliminary. It is the trial. After the two weeks expire the court decides without a hearing and without taking the public prosecutor's opinion, weighing the factors in TCK 61 that govern how a sentence is set (CMK 251/3). Everything you would have said in the courtroom, about the facts, the complainant, the messages or the medical report, and about your own circumstances, has to be on paper before the deadline, because there is no later moment at which the judge asks you a question.

The file is kept in Turkish, so the defence is filed in Turkish, in practice through counsel, with any foreign documents you rely on attached in translation. CMK 251/2 also directs the court to request the documents that need to be collected from the relevant institutions, which means the defence can and should point the judge to records that exist somewhere else: bank statements that show a payment to the complainant, a hospital record, the police report of the night in question. A written defence that names the document and where it sits does more than one that argues in the abstract.

Two requests belong in the same document. The first concerns a hearing. If the case turns on a witness, a confrontation or an account that only makes sense when heard, ask the court to open a hearing under CMK 251/6; the decision remains the court's, but the request puts the point on the record. The second concerns the deferred judgment, hükmün açıklanmasının geri bırakılması (HAGB). Under CMK 251/4 the court may defer the pronouncement of the judgment only if the defendant has not objected to it in writing. Silence allows it. Whether you want it depends on the case: HAGB presupposes a finding of guilt with a sentence of two years or less or a judicial fine (CMK 231/5), so a defendant who believes the evidence supports an acquittal may not want the court to have that exit; a defendant whose priority is to avoid a recorded conviction will generally leave the door open.

Compensation belongs in the same fortnight. Under the text of CMK 231/6 in force since 16 July 2026, a deferred judgment requires that the harm caused to the victim or the public has been made good in full, by restitution, restoration or compensation, and CMK 231/9 lets the court accept payment in monthly instalments during the supervision period where immediate payment is not possible. A suspended sentence under TCK 51/2 can likewise be made conditional on compensation. A receipt attached to the written defence is therefore not a gesture; it is a document the judge is required to look for.

Once the period has run, the court gives one of the judgments listed in CMK 223: acquittal, a finding that no penalty is to be imposed, conviction, a security measure, dismissal of the action, or a decision that the case has lapsed. Where the judgment is a conviction, the final sentence is reduced by one quarter (CMK 251/3). The reduction is applied to the result after the ordinary sentencing steps, which is why the written defence should still argue mitigation: a quarter of a smaller figure is a smaller figure.

The court then has the same tools it would have after a hearing, and CMK 251/4 names them. A short-term prison sentence, meaning one year or less (TCK 49/2), may be converted into one of the alternative sanctions in TCK 50/1: a judicial fine, full compensation of the harm, a training programme, a ban on certain places or activities, the withdrawal of a licence, or voluntary community work. One limit applies: where the offence itself offers imprisonment or a fine as alternatives and the court has chosen imprisonment, that sentence cannot afterwards be converted into a fine (TCK 50/2). A sentence of two years or less may be suspended under TCK 51/1 if the defendant has not previously been sentenced to more than three months' imprisonment for an intentional offence and the court is satisfied that the offence will not be repeated, with a supervision period of one to three years (TCK 51/3). And, provided the defendant has not objected in writing, the court may defer the judgment under CMK 231.

The judgment must describe the objection route and what follows from it (CMK 251/5). If no one objects within the period, the judgment becomes final (CMK 252/1), and a conviction then moves to enforcement like any other.

A judgment given under CMK 251 can be challenged by objection, itiraz (CMK 252/1). Article 252 sets no period of its own, so the general rule in CMK 268/1 applies: two weeks from the day you learn of the decision, by a petition to the court that gave it or by a statement recorded by the clerk. The two weeks are counted from learning of the decision under CMK 35, which for a defendant abroad is the date the judgment was validly served.

What the objection produces changed on 2 March 2024. Under CMK 252/2 the file no longer stays with the judge who wrote the judgment: where the town has more than one asliye ceza mahkemesi, it is sent to another one chosen under the distribution rules; where there is only one, it goes to another judge of the same court, or to a judge appointed by the judicial commission. That court opens a hearing and continues under the general provisions. The hearing takes place even if the parties do not attend, judgment may be given in their absence under CMK 223, and the summons says so. If the objection is withdrawn before the hearing, no hearing is held and the objection is treated as never made.

The price is in CMK 252/3. The court that hears the objection is not bound by the simplified judgment, and the quarter reduction of CMK 251/3 survives only where the objection was filed by someone other than the defendant. In plain terms: if you object, the discount is gone and the sentence can come out higher than the one you objected to; if only the complainant or the prosecutor objects, you keep the quarter whatever the new court decides. CMK 252/4 adds that a result in the defendant's favour extends to co-defendants who did not object, where it can apply to them. The judgment given after the hearing is then open to the ordinary remedies (CMK 252/5), that is, the appeal to the regional court described on the appeals page.

Two housekeeping rules close the article. An objection that is late, or filed by someone without standing, is passed by the court to the review authority in CMK 268/2, which examines those points only (CMK 252/6). An objection that concerns only costs, the lawyer's fee awarded in the judgment or a clerical error also goes to that authority instead of reopening the trial (CMK 252/7).

The procedure was written for a defendant who is reachable by post in Türkiye. It works for one who is not, provided the file acquires an address in Istanbul before the clock runs out. The sequence that follows is the one the statute rewards.

1. Establish the date of service. The two weeks in CMK 251/2 run from service, not from awareness. Photograph the envelope, the delivery slip and every page as received.
2. Put a lawyer on the file. A power of attorney signed abroad and lodged in Türkiye makes the lawyer the address for service under Notification Act Article 11/1 and gives the file a defence. How that document is prepared from abroad is set out separately.
3. File the written defence in time. Facts, evidence, the request that the court obtain institutional records under CMK 251/2, the request for a hearing under CMK 251/6 if witnesses matter, and your position on HAGB under CMK 251/4.
4. Settle the compensation question before the judgment. Under CMK 231/6 as amended in July 2026 and TCK 51/2, whether the harm has been made good decides whether HAGB or a suspended sentence is available at all.
5. Read the judgment for the remedy paragraph. CMK 34/2 and 251/5 require it to state the objection route; the two weeks under CMK 268/1 start when the judgment reaches you.
6. Decide on the objection as a calculation, not a reflex. CMK 252/3 removes the quarter if the objection is yours; a hearing before another judge is worth that price only where the written judgment rests on a point a hearing can actually change.

Travel deserves a word of its own. Because there is no hearing and no summons in the simplified stage, the compelled-attendance warning of CMK 176/2 has nothing to attach to, and an objection hearing under CMK 252/2 proceeds without you by the terms of the article itself. That does not make a trip to Türkiye irrelevant; whether being questioned in person helps or harms is a judgment about your case, and the position on any other open file should be checked before booking, as described in the note on checking for a warrant before travelling. What the procedure does mean is that the defence of a two-year-ceiling offence no longer depends on a flight.