October 22, 2022

Legal advice for divorce in Turkey

If assistance from a lawyer in Turkey is needed, the person seeking to divorce must grant the lawyer a power of attorney. You can request a private trial if you don’t want the public to be present in the courtroom and hear details about your marriage. In certain cases, the judge will accept the request and will start the trial closed to the public.

The judge may decide to offer to the two parties a period of reconciliation between one and three years and only after that period, the divorce procedure may end. After the divorce, the woman usually goes back to her family name before the marriage. Here are extra details to consider:

Only if the judge approves, she can keep the ex-husband’s name after the divorce.
Almost a year after the divorce, the woman can’t get married again.
A new marriage in the next 300 days after the divorce is possible only if a judge approves it. In court, it can be settled that a future marriage can’t take place in the next period, no matter the reason.
The court decides on children issues related to custody and may force the parents to contribute to the children growth according to their income.

Child custody will be decided in court and the judge will choose the spouse who can provide the child with the needed care, both material and emotional. If the spouses separated because of issues like family violence, then one of the parties may ask for a limitation of the visitation rights. A lawyer in Turkey will help you with court representation, especially in those cases where the situation of the children needs to be carefully considered.

Grounds for divorce in Turkey

Spouses can divorce in terms of incompatibility, understood as a case when the two individuals no longer share the same ideas and feelings. This is a common cause of divorce in Turkey, but other situations are also possible. The following represent the grounds for divorce accepted in a court in Turkey, as stated in the Turkish Civil Law:

adultery,
unreasonable behavior,
maltreatment, physical violence or attempt to kill,
if one of the spouses has committed a crime,
desertion: if the spouses were separated for at least six months and the separation continues, the spouse that was deserted can file a lawsuit for divorce,
mental disease,
irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.

The Turkish divorce procedure is not lengthy or complicated as it is based on the Swiss Family Law. This law put an end to the Islamic rules, different from the modern principles of family laws.

Types of divorce in Turkey

In Turkey, there are two major types of divorces: contentious divorce suit and consensual divorce. The first procedure implies one of the spouses to file for divorce because of the conflicts with the other party, adultery or mental illness. The uncontested divorce is when one of the spouses decides to finish the marriage, goes to the court and there is no objection related to the separation.

Court proceedings in case of contested divorces in Turkey

The procedures involved in court procedures related to contested and uncontested divorces are different. In the case of contentious divorces, the following procedure applies:

the party seeking for divorce must file a petition with the court;
the court will accept evidence from both spouses and hear both parties;
the court will also hear witnesses from both parties and make a decision;
the court will issue the final ruling on the divorce within 16 days from the decision.