Under article 168 of Turkish Civil Law, the competent court for the divorce and separation cases; shall be the residence place of one of the Parties or the residence of the Parties which is used until 6 months prior to the case filing day. The objections regarding the competent court must be filed with the first petition (answer to the case) by defining the competent court with its reasons. As the Husband currently lives in Istanbul, Turkey, our jurisdiction objections would most possibly denied by the 6th Family Court of Istanbul.
Thus, the case file in the UK shall not be able to freeze nor stop the proceedings in Turkey unless there is a recognized and enforced Foreign Court Decision in Turkey.
Under Turkish Law, a foreign court decision which acquires final and definitive judgment status with recognition whereas such decision causes public force when enforced and shall be treated like a Turkish judgment. The judge of the recognition and enforcement case shall not be entitled to investigate the correctness of the foreign court decision; both the procedure applied to the foreign court decision, material and legal determinations out of Turkish recognition and enforcement of judge’s authority.
a. The procedure and principles of recognition and enforcement cases are stated in Article 50 and the rest of International Private and Civil Procedure Law numbered 5718.
The case shall be filed by family courts; or by civil court of first instance, in case there are not any family courts in the judicial district. Court of competent jurisdiction are defendant’s residence court; if not, the court where the defendant settles and if not, one of İstanbul, Ankara or İzmir courts. In our case we must use Istanbul Courts to file this case.
b. Any person who has a legal interest shall demand a recognition and enforcement of a foreign court decision. Recognition and enforcement demand shall be made with a petition which shall include the names, surnames and addresses of the plaintiff, defendant (and their attorneys’, if any), name of the foreign court which has given the decision, date and number of the decision, summary of the decision, and demand and explanation of the part in case the recognition and enforcement demand is made for a specific part of a foreign decision.
1. The original document or a duly approved copy of the foreign court decision and its approved and notarized translation and;
2. Letter or document that indicates the finalization of the decision and its approved and notarized translation shall be attached to the petition.
The decision must be given by a foreign court about civil law suits and finalized by foreign country laws. Besides these conditions;
i. Turkey and the country where the decision is given must have an agreement on reciprocity or that country shall have laws or de facto applications which allow the enforcement of decisions given by Turkish courts,
ii. The provisions of the decision must not be against Turkish public order,
iii. The decision must be given on goodwill which are not within the exclusive authority of Turkish courts,
iv. Right of defense of the person against whom the enforcement has been demanded must have been protected.
c. Case fee of recognition and enforcement cases are approximately 250 TL. Besides, there would be notification, expert, translation, stationary, and cargo fees which might be around 2,000 TL depending on the case.
d. The process of the recognition and enforcement cases are simple and fast regarding that the examination is made according to simple jurisdiction procedures.