After the Remand Order in Türkiye: The Reviews, and the Two-Week Clock

In the investigation stage a remand order is made by a sulh ceza judge on the prosecutor's request; once trial has begun it is made by the court, on the prosecutor's request or of its own motion (CMK 101/1).

Under CMK 101/2 the order — whether it imposes detention, continues it, or refuses release — must show, through concrete facts, four things: strong suspicion of the offence, a ground for detention, that the measure is proportionate, and that judicial control would be insufficient. Its content is announced orally to the person and a written copy is given, and the order must record that this was done.

Keep that copy. It identifies which of the four elements the order is weakest on, and it fixes the day from which the objection period runs. CMK 101/5 makes decisions given under CMK 100 and 101 open to objection.

What does not happen: no one outside the file is notified, no date is sent to your family, and no application is made on your behalf. If the hours before the order are still unclear to you, that sequence is set out on what happens after arrest in Türkiye.

The review is the only one of the three that runs on a timetable.

• CMK 108/1. During the investigation, while the suspect is detained, the sulh ceza judge decides at intervals of no more than thirty days, on the prosecutor's request, whether detention should continue — having regard to CMK 100, and after hearing the suspect or defence counsel.
• CMK 108/2. The suspect may request that examination within the same period instead of waiting for it.
• CMK 108/3. Once there is a trial, the judge or court decides on continued detention at every hearing, or between hearings where the conditions require it, or within the period in the first paragraph.

It is not an appeal

A review is a fresh look at whether the grounds still hold, on the material in the file at that moment. It is usually taken with defence counsel heard rather than in a courtroom with the detainee produced. Three consequences follow. A review on an unchanged file normally produces an unchanged answer. Anything new — a forensic report, a surrendered passport, a verified address — has to be in the file before the date, not after it. And the review decision is itself a judge's decision, so it can be objected to in its own right.

CMK 267 opens judges' decisions — and court decisions where the law so provides — to objection, and CMK 101/5 confirms it for detention.

The deadline, and a correction worth making

Under CMK 268/1 the objection is made within two weeks of the day the person concerned learned of the decision, by a petition to the authority that made it or by a statement to the clerk recorded in a minute. A great deal of material still in circulation says seven days. That was the wording before it was replaced with two weeks by Law no. 7499 of 2 March 2024. Working from an older summary means working to a deadline that no longer exists. For a detainee present when the order was announced, the day the decision was learned is the day of the hearing.

Where it goes

Under CMK 268/2 the judge or court whose decision is challenged looks at it first and may correct it. If it does not, it must send the file to the reviewing authority within three days at most.

CMK 271 governs the outcome: the decision is given without a hearing as a rule, though the prosecutor and then defence counsel may be heard where that is thought necessary (271/1); it is given in the shortest possible time (271/3); and it is final (271/4). One exception in that last paragraph matters — where the reviewing authority itself orders detention for the first time, that order can be objected to.

The third mechanism waits for nothing. Under CMK 104/1 the suspect or accused may ask to be released at any stage of the investigation and of the trial. Under CMK 104/2 the judge or court decides whether detention continues or the person is released, and a refusal is open to objection.

CMK 105 sets the clock. The authority decides within three days — granting the request, refusing it, or imposing judicial control instead. Where the decision is taken outside a hearing, the views of the prosecutor, the suspect, the accused or defence counsel are expressly not taken (CMK 105/1, sentence added by Law no. 6459 of 11 April 2013); they are taken only where the question is decided in the hearing. For offences committed within the framework of the activity of an organisation, that period is applied as seven days. These decisions can also be objected to.

When to make it

Applications are not rationed, but repetition is not a strategy; what moves a file is a change in it. For a foreign national the changes that count are usually documentary rather than argumentative:

• a passport lodged with the court or the prosecutor rather than offered;
• a verifiable address in Türkiye, with a tenancy or an employer's letter behind it;
• a residence or work permit, with its expiry date;
• a forensic or accounting report that narrows what is alleged;
• a co-suspect's statement that has changed.

Almost none of that is assembled inside a prison. What relatives abroad can obtain, and what they cannot, is set out on the page for families of a detainee.

Two things this is not. It is not an appeal against a conviction — that route has its own deadlines and is described on the page on istinaf and temyiz. And it decides nothing about the charge itself.

The grounds a court applies at each of these points — the conditions in CMK 100, the obligations that can replace detention under CMK 109, and the outer limits on the length of remand in CMK 102 — are set out on the remand and judicial control page. This note covers only what happens after the order, and who has to move it.