An uzlaştırmacı called you: who they are, and the seven days that are already running

The person calling is an uzlaştırmacı — a mediator appointed to your file by the mediation bureau (uzlaştırma bürosu) attached to a chief public prosecutor's office. Mediators are appointed from lists of law faculty graduates maintained by the Ministry of Justice (CMK 253/24). They contact each side separately, and they are neither a judge nor anyone's lawyer.

The appointment itself tells you something about the file. A prosecutor sends a case to the bureau only after concluding two things: that the offence recorded against you falls inside CMK 253, and that there is sufficient suspicion to bring a public prosecution (CMK 253/4). The call is not a sign that the investigation has gone quiet. It is the point at which the one route that ends a file rather than softening it opens — with a deadline attached.

What the mediator must do on that first contact is explain the nature of mediation and the legal consequences of accepting and of refusing (CMK 253/5). The prosecutor may give them instructions on the method to be followed (CMK 253/14). What they are not there to do is take a statement about the incident, decide anything, or obtain an answer from you on the telephone.

Nothing is decided on that call, and a mediator will not read questions as hostility. Five things are worth writing down before you hang up, because each of them settles something you would otherwise be guessing at.

Then the point that separates a genuine appointment from an impostor. No money is ever paid to a mediator. The fee is set by a Ministry of Justice tariff, counts as a litigation cost, and where a settlement is reached it is borne by the Treasury (CMK 253/22). Anything you agree to perform is written into the mediation report, signed by the parties (CMK 253/15) and checked by the prosecutor for lawfulness and for free will before it is sealed into the file (CMK 253/17).

Seven days run from the moment the offer reaches you. A person who does not communicate a decision within that period is deemed to have refused it (CMK 253/4). Nothing extends the seven days, and once a mediation has ended without result, recourse to mediation cannot be had again in the same file (CMK 253/18).

Two things follow in practice. Answer in writing, addressed to the bureau, so that the date and the content of your answer sit in the file rather than in someone's note of a conversation. And establish the start date rather than assuming it: where the offer was served by explanatory notification, the service record carries the date that counts.

If the explanation required by CMK 253/5 reached you in Turkish and you did not follow it, say so on the call and repeat it in writing. The right to an interpreter in criminal proceedings runs through CMK 202, and a request recorded now is worth considerably more than an objection raised months later to a document you have already signed.

Only the answer is on a seven-day clock. What follows is longer: the mediator must conclude within thirty days of receiving the case documents, and the bureau may extend that twice, each extension no longer than twenty days (CMK 253/12). Accepting therefore commits you to no figure and to no version of events — statements made during the negotiations may not be used as evidence in any investigation, prosecution or case (CMK 253/20). What acceptance does commit you to is attendance: a party who declines to take part in the negotiations, personally or through counsel, is deemed not to have accepted the settlement (CMK 253/13).

Whether a mediator should be calling you is decided by the article the prosecutor recorded. Two routes bring a file into scope. CMK 253/1-a covers every offence whose investigation and prosecution depend on a complaint. CMK 253/1-b then adds a closed list of offences that qualify whether or not a complaint is required, and it lists basic forms only: intentional injury under TCK 86, expressly excluding its third paragraph, and TCK 88; negligent injury under TCK 89; threat under TCK 106/1; violation of the inviolability of the residence under TCK 116; violation of the freedom to work under TCK 117/1 and TCK 119/1-c; theft under TCK 141; abuse of trust under TCK 155, excluding its third paragraph; fraud under TCK 157; receiving stolen goods under TCK 165; abduction and detention of a child under TCK 234; and disclosure of commercial, banking or customer secrets under TCK 239, excluding its fourth paragraph. An incident written up as injury with a weapon or against a spouse falls under TCK 86/3 and leaves the regime altogether — see assault and public order charges for what remains in those files. A shop incident recorded as a qualified form of theft rather than TCK 141 does the same, which is why the article on the cover matters more than the value involved in theft and shoplifting files. Mediation is excluded by name for offences against sexual inviolability, for persistent following (TCK 123/A) and for insult (TCK 125), even where a complaint is required (CMK 253/3).

Where an offence is in scope, referral to the bureau is not discretionary, and a file that was never sent is a defect worth raising while it can still be cured.

What a completed settlement produces is a decision not to prosecute where the agreed performance is made at once, or a deferral of the prosecution where it is spread over time (CMK 253/19); after an indictment, dismissal or a stay (CMK 254/2). None of these is a conviction, and only final convictions handed down by Turkish courts are entered in the judicial record, for foreign nationals as for citizens (Law no. 5352, art. 4) — what that means for residence and work permit checks is set out in our note on the Turkish judicial record. What does not pause meanwhile: evidence gathering and protective measures continue (CMK 253/8), so a travel ban ends only when a decision removes it. How the process runs from referral to report, which offences qualify and what a performance may consist of are set out on our page on uzlaştırma and closing a case by settlement.