A Turkish court judgment is sent abroad when its result has to produce effects in another country: a divorce, custody, an inheritance or a debt. Before any of that, the receiving side needs to know that the paper is genuine, and that is the job of the apostille. Whether the judgment then has legal effect in the receiving country is a separate question, called recognition or enforcement, and no apostille answers it.
The original: the judicial commission
A court judgment is a judicial document. The Turkish Ministry of Justice circular on the Apostille Convention names the authority for judicial documents as the adli yargı adalet komisyonu başkanlığı, the presidency of the judicial commission that sits at courthouses with a high criminal court. The apostille page of the Onikişubat District Governor’s Office assigns the originals of judicial documents to the judicial commission, and the Develi District Governor’s Office writes that it does not certify judicial documents. The original of a judgment is therefore not apostilled at the kaymakamlık, the district governor’s office.
The e-Apostil route for a judgment
A court judgment is among the documents covered by e-Apostil, the official Turkish electronic apostille system, and the application is made through e-Devlet, the Turkish e-government portal, from the holder’s own account. The PTT service fee for this document type differs from the fee for a criminal record extract; the current amounts are on the official system’s own page. The electronic apostille is delivered as a file signed with the qualified electronic certificate of PTT, the national postal operator. Whether the receiving court or authority will take the file itself, or expects a printout, should be agreed before the application is made, as a printout of an electronic apostille cannot be verified on paper.
The finality clause
A foreign authority may look for the clause showing that the judgment has become final (kesinleşme şerhi). The German missions in Türkiye ask for divorce judgments in full text, with the finality clause, the apostille and a German translation together. The apostille does not add the clause; it only certifies the signature on the document as it stands. Before applying for the apostille, it is therefore worth checking that the judgment already carries the clause.
The translation and the second apostille
When the judgment is translated by a sworn translator (yeminli tercüman, a translator whose oath is recorded at a Turkish notary) and the translation is certified by the notary, the apostille placed on that certification no longer concerns the judicial document but the notary’s signature, and it is issued by the vali or kaymakam, the provincial or district governor. One file can therefore hold two apostilles, one from the judicial commission and one from a governor’s office. The Turkish side keeps both routes open; which of the two the file has to contain is decided by the authority in the receiving country.
Recognition is a separate procedure
The apostille certifies only the signature, the capacity of the signatory and the seal. Whether the judgment has effect in the receiving country depends on that country’s rules on recognition or enforcement of foreign judgments, which may call for a separate application. The apostilled judgment is a piece of that application, not its result, and the recognition procedure itself is the work of a lawyer or of the authority in that country. A translation office renders the text; it does not give legal advice on recognition.
Two avoidable setbacks
The first is taking the judgment to the district governor’s office: the office does not apostille judicial documents, the application is turned away and time is lost. The second is having a judgment apostilled and translated before the finality clause has been added. When the clause is added later, the existing translation does not contain it and may have to be made again; the order should be clause, apostille, translation, with the second apostille on the notarial certification of the translation coming last.