HAGB and what it leaves behind — the record, and the border

Two things have to happen before an entry appears in the Turkish judicial record — the adli sicil. There has to be a judgment, and it has to be announced. Under CMK 231 the court builds the judgment and then does not announce it. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why the record question answers itself.

CMK 231/5 states it directly: apart from the provisions on confiscation, a deferred judgment produces no legal consequence for the defendant. Law no. 5352 art. 4 sets out what is entered in the judicial record, and it is built around final convictions handed down by Turkish courts — against citizens and foreign nationals alike. A judgment that was never announced is not a conviction, so there is nothing to enter.

The same reasoning disposes of the second record. Turkish records law keeps a separate arşiv kaydı — an archive record — which is fed by entries transferred out of the judicial record once a sentence has been executed or the matter has otherwise concluded. Where no judgment is announced, no sentence is ever executed, and nothing is transferred. This is the point at which a deferred judgment genuinely differs from a suspended sentence under TCK 51, where the conviction stands and is recorded along with the supervision period and the outcome. If you are trying to work out which certificate says what, and how to obtain one from abroad, start with the judicial record and the archive record.

What does exist is the reserved system in CMK 231/13. Deferral decisions are entered there, and the entries may be used only where a prosecutor, judge or court requests them in connection with an investigation or prosecution, and only for the purpose set out in Article 231. It is a closed file, not an absent one.

Four consequences follow from CMK 231/13 being a real record with a narrow readership.

• A second deferral is barred. Under CMK 231/8, during the five-year period no further deferral may be granted for an intentional offence. The court in that second case will look the entry up, and it will find it.
• The court that announces the judgment relies on it. If you commit an intentional offence or breach the supervision obligations, CMK 231/11 requires the judgment to be announced. It may then order that up to half the sentence not be executed, or suspend it, or convert it — but a conviction now exists, and it is recorded like any other.
• The migration authority is not bound by CMK 231/5. Under Law no. 6458 art. 54/1-d a deportation decision is taken about a foreigner assessed as constituting a threat to public order, public security or public health. That is an administrative assessment. It does not require a conviction, and the sentence in CMK 231/5 about legal consequences governs the criminal file, not the governorate's file. See deportation and entry bans.
• Your own country's record is a separate matter. Turkish law controls what is written in Türkiye and who may ask for it. What a foreign visa officer, employer or licensing body sees depends on their rules, on any information-sharing arrangement, and sometimes on a direct question you are obliged to answer honestly. Anyone who tells you a deferred judgment is invisible everywhere is guessing.

The supervision period is not a travel ban. Under CMK 231/8 the court may impose supervised release measures — denetimli serbestlik — for a period it fixes, not exceeding one year: attendance at a training programme where you have no trade or profession; working for a wage where you have one; a prohibition on going to certain places, a requirement to attend certain places, or another obligation the court sees fit to set. A prohibition on leaving the country is not named in that list. The residual limb is broad enough that the answer is in your decision rather than in the statute, which is why you read the operative part rather than assume it.

In practice the order that stops people at passport control was made much earlier and for a different reason. It is a judicial-control obligation under CMK 109/3-a — not to leave the country — imposed during the case as an alternative to remand. It is a separate decision with its own life, and a deferral of the judgment does not automatically extinguish it.

If it is still standing, there are two applications and they are not alternatives. Under CMK 111/1, on your request and after the prosecutor's opinion is taken, the judge or court may decide within five days; CMK 110/2 gives that decision its range — new obligations, lifting the existing ones wholly or in part, varying them, or exempting you temporarily, which is the power used for a single trip. Separately, CMK 111/2 allows an objection to a judicial-control decision, within two weeks of the day you learn of it under CMK 268/1. The full sequence, including the four-month reviews and the outer limits, is set out in the note on travel bans during a criminal case.

Two provisions are worth knowing before you consider the shortcut. CMK 109/6 provides that time spent under judicial control is not treated as a restriction of personal liberty and cannot be deducted from a sentence — the waiting buys nothing. And under CMK 112/1, where a suspect or accused deliberately fails to comply, the competent judicial authority may order remand immediately, whatever the length of the prison sentence that could be imposed.

Leaving and returning are two questions. For a foreign national the second is usually the harder one.

What deferral genuinely removes is the trigger in TCK 59. Under that article a foreigner sentenced to imprisonment is reported to the Ministry of the Interior for assessment in connection with deportation, once supervised execution or conditional release is ordered and in every case once the sentence has been served. Where the judgment is never announced there is no sentence being executed, and the notification does not arise. That is a real difference and it is worth arguing for. It is not the same as safety, because art. 54/1-d stands on its own feet.

If a deportation decision is nonetheless taken, an entry ban follows. Under Law no. 6458 art. 9 the ban runs for a maximum of five years; where there is a serious threat to public order or public security the Directorate General may extend it by up to ten further years. The Directorate General may also lift a ban, or permit entry for a defined period while it remains in place.

Meanwhile the calendar keeps running on the other file. Five years of supervision will outlast most residence permits and several renewals, and nothing in the criminal decision keeps your permit alive. Under Law no. 6458 art. 54/1-g a deportation decision is taken about a foreigner who exceeds an expired residence permit by more than ten days without acceptable justification. Under art. 32 a short-term residence permit requires, among other things, a criminal record certificate issued by the authorities of your country of nationality or lawful residence where one is asked for — your own state's record, not the Turkish one. Put the permit expiry date in the diary the week the deferral is granted, not the month it runs out.

A deferral decision is delivered quickly, in Turkish, at the end of a hearing where the attention in the room has already moved on. Four things are worth securing before you leave the building.

• The reasoned decision in writing, with the operative part identifying every obligation imposed and every measure lifted. This is the document that answers the border question later.
• An express ruling on the exit ban, rather than an assumption that it went with the judgment.
• The figure and the schedule, if repair of the loss was made a condition. CMK 231/9 allows deferral on an undertaking to pay in monthly instalments across the supervision period — it has to be asked for, and the amount has to be established rather than accepted.
• The appeal position. Under CMK 231/12 a deferral decision is challenged by istinaf, subject to CMK 272/3. For decisions given before 1 June 2024, CMK Geçici Madde 6 keeps the older itiraz route and the consent condition that then applied. Article 231 as it now stands, following the amendment made by Law no. 7589 of 16 July 2026, sets no consent condition — which means a court can place you under five years of supervision in a case you wanted fought to an acquittal.

None of this is where the outcome is actually decided. Whether the file lands at two years or two years and one month, and whether deferral, suspension under TCK 51 or conversion under TCK 50 is the route that fits, is settled during the trial and not in an application afterwards. That comparison — the ceilings, the prior-record bars, and what each one leaves on the record — is set out in the practice note on suspended sentences, HAGB and alternatives to prison.