An adoption decree issued in Türkiye is used abroad for the child’s citizenship, passport, residence or school enrolment; sometimes a family living abroad adopts a child from Türkiye and the decree is presented for recognition in that country. In both situations the foreign authority wants to see that the decree is a genuine and final decision of a Turkish court. The apostille attests the signature on the decree; finality is shown by the clause on it. Whether the decree then has legal effect in that country is a separate recognition procedure and lies outside the subject of this site.
The adoption decree is a judicial document
The decree is issued by a family court and is a judicial document under the Apostille Convention. The Turkish Ministry of Justice circular names as the apostille authority for judicial documents the adli yargı adalet komisyonu başkanlığı, the presidency of the judicial commission at places with a high criminal court; the provincial and district governor’s offices apostille administrative documents and notarial acts, and the original of a decree is neither, so it is not apostilled at the kaymakamlık, the district governor’s office. How an application to the commission is made, how long it takes and whether a power of attorney is required from a third person was not found on an official page in this site’s survey; the commission should be telephoned before the visit.
The finality clause is part of the adoption decree
The finality clause (kesinleşme şerhi) records on the decree that it has become final, and the apostille is obtained after it; which court office writes the clause was not read on an official page in this site’s survey. Under article 5 the apostille attests a signature and names its author; if the order is reversed, the apostille obtained first and the clause added later, the signature under the clause is not named in the certificate, and whether a fresh apostille is then required is not settled in any source this site surveyed. Whether the full text of the decree with the clause is wanted, or a shorter form will do, is decided by the authority receiving it and is asked before the decree is obtained.
e-Apostil on an adoption decree
The court judgment is among the document types covered by e-Apostil, the official Turkish electronic apostille system. The application is made after logging in to e-Devlet, the Turkish e-government portal; the Ministry of Justice applies the apostille, the document is signed with the qualified electronic certificate of PTT, the national postal operator, and delivered electronically, and the foreign authority checks it by uploading the file on the verification page of the official site. The Hague Conference has announced that a validly issued electronic apostille cannot be refused solely because it is electronic; even so, the authority handling the adoption file should be asked beforehand in which form it accepts the file. Where parts of the decree are confidential, what will be visible in the electronic document belongs to that same question.
After the decree: registry extract and Formül A
Once the adoption appears in the civil register, the foreign authority may ask, instead of or alongside the decree, for the nüfus kayıt örneği, the civil registry extract, or for the multilingual birth extract. The registry extract is an administrative document, apostilled at a governor’s or district governor’s office and also available through e-Apostil; the multilingual Formül A passes without apostille or translation in the countries that accept it. The German missions in Türkiye write that they look for neither an apostille nor a translation on Formül A, but for both on the civil registry extract.
Intercountry adoption requests this site could not verify
Which institution asks for which document with which certification when a family abroad adopts from Türkiye could not be verified against an official source in this site’s survey, and the document list of the Turkish central authority was not read. This page therefore describes only the apostille chain of the Turkish decree and states no rule about the adoption procedure itself. In the French legalisation table, judicial documents from Türkiye relating to family situation appear as exempt from legalisation; whether an adoption decree falls within that description depends on the reading of the French authority and is not written here as a verified rule.
Names and the clause in the adoption decree translation
The translation is made from the complete decree bearing the finality clause, which is translated with it; whether the apostille on the decree is translated too is left to the foreign authority. The child’s old and new names, the date of birth and the names of the adoptive parents are carried over exactly as spelled in the passport and the civil register. The translation is certified by a notary (the translator being a yeminli tercüman, a sworn translator whose oath is recorded there); if the foreign authority wants an apostille on the translation, that second apostille is placed on the notarial certification and obtained from any provincial or district governor’s office.