The Expedited Adjudication Procedure (Seri Muhakeme Usulü) in Turkish Criminal Procedure

Abstract

In 2019, the Turkish legislature introduced a negotiated justice scheme for non-serious offences, which resembles to some extent the Italian patteggiamento and the French plaider coupable procedures, which in turn have been inspired by the guilty plea procedure of common law jurisdictions. This novel institution is called expedited trial procedure (seri muhakeme usulü), which primarily takes place at the investigation stage, culminating towards an official offer that needs to be sealed off by a judge at the trial stage. It has started to gain practical relevance since at least 2021. The present article shall explore this negotiated justice mechanism by putting it briefly into the European context and providing a bird's-eye view of the existing alternative case disposition mechanisms in the Turkish criminal procedure. The article shall then focus on matters relating to the requirements for applying the procedure and the procedural guarantees foreseen by the legislature. The work will also analyse the role of the prosecutor and the judge, which has been enhanced by a Constitutional Court Judgment in 2021 that resulted in an amendment of the existing legislation to expand the possibilities of the judge for reviewing the sentence proposal made by the public prosecutor. Finally, the article provides statistics regarding the institution's application in practice.