Correction Of The Name Written In The Judgment – Clarification Route Supreme Court Decision
Summary:
It is possible to change the incorrectly written name of a party in a court ruling through “clarification.”
A final ruling cannot be limited, expanded, or changed in terms of content through “clarification.”
T.C.
Supreme Court of Appeals
General Assembly of Civil Law
Case No: 2010/0
Decision No: 2010/138
Date: 10.3.2010
(“…The plaintiff claimed that the defendant had not paid the debt owed to him and had objected to the enforcement proceedings initiated, requesting that the objection be dismissed and 40% compensation be awarded.
The defendant requested that the case be dismissed.
The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff; after the judgment became final, the plaintiff learned that according to the defendant’s civil registry, his surname was Dalkiç, not Dalgıç, and requested that the defendant’s surname be corrected to Dalkiç, arguing that he could not enforce the final judgment despite initiating enforcement proceedings. The court rejected the request for clarification on the grounds that the defendant’s surname was shown as Dalgıç, not Dalkiç, in the enforcement request and the statement of claim, and that the decision was made accordingly. The plaintiff appealed the decision.
Although the judge cannot issue a clarification decision that would change the original judgment and nullify the final judgment, pursuant to the provisions of Article 455 of the Code of Civil Procedure, if there are ambiguous and contradictory provisions in the decision he has issued, he may issue a correction decision to eliminate this ambiguity and contradiction. In his request for clarification, the plaintiff stated that the defendant’s real surname was not Dalgıç but Dalkiç and requested that this be corrected, thereby also requesting clarification of this ambiguous point. In this case, the court should investigate the defendant’s real surname, determine whether this surname belongs to two different persons or to the defendant, and render a decision accordingly. The court’s ruling in writing without conducting any investigation or inquiry in this regard is contrary to procedure and law and requires reversal.”)
The case was overturned on these grounds and remanded for retrial, at the end of which the court upheld its previous decision.
DECISION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF LAW
After the General Assembly of Law reviewed the case and determined that the appeal against the decision to uphold the ruling was filed within the time limit and after reading the documents in the file, the following was decided:
The case concerns a request for the cancellation of an objection; the defendant’s surname, which is alleged to be incorrect in the court’s decision, is requested to be clarified.
From the decision subject to clarification, it is understood that the plaintiff requested the cancellation of the objection made to the enforcement proceedings initiated against the defendant K. Dalgıç; the court decided to accept the case, and the judgment became final without appeal; the defendant’s name was written as Dalkic in the heading of the final decision.
The plaintiff’s attorney stated that during the enforcement proceedings for the final decision, they learned that the defendant’s surname in the population registry was Dalkiç and requested clarification on the grounds that the incorrect surname in the court decision made it impossible to enforce the judgment.
The local court’s decision to reject the request on the grounds that the case was concluded based on the surname Dalgıç as stated in the enforcement proceedings and the petition was overturned by the Special Chamber for the reasons explained above.
The court decided to uphold the previous decision on the grounds that no material error had been made, there was no contradiction in the judgment, and the enforcement of the judgment had begun. The plaintiff’s attorney appealed the judgment.
The dispute centers on whether the decision is ambiguous in terms of the defendant’s surname and whether the conditions for the application of Article 455 of the Code of Civil Procedure have been met.
Article 455 of the Code of Civil Procedure No. 1086 stipulates that “if the judgment is ambiguous and unclear or contains contradictory paragraphs, either party may request clarification of the judgment and removal of the contradiction until its enforcement.”
As stated in the aforementioned article, clarification of a judgment is a legal remedy sought to reveal the true meaning of a judgment when it is unclear (ambiguous) or contains unclear (unclear) and contradictory (conflicting) clauses.
The ruling cannot be restricted, expanded, or changed through clarification (tevzih). The ruling cannot be changed unless the trial is remanded or the ruling is appealed and overturned. The clarification of rulings cannot be considered an exception to this. The judge is obliged to reveal the truth in order to prevent the ruling from being understood in any other way.
As a rule, clarification only concerns the operative part of the ruling. Clarification cannot be used to explain the reasoning behind the ruling. However, if there is a contradiction between the operative part of the judgment and the reasoning, clarification may be sought to resolve this contradiction (YHGK’s decision dated 14.06.1967 and numbered 1967/9-462 E: 300 K.).
Clarification may also be sought regarding Supreme Court decisions such as this one. Although an appeal may be lodged claiming that the ruling has been changed by the clarification decision, no appeal may be lodged with the General Assembly of the Supreme Court against the decisions of the Chamber of the Supreme Court regarding the clarification of its own decisions (Decision of the General Assembly of the Supreme Court dated March 15, 1969, No. 1969/2-466 E.178 K.).
It is not necessary to wait for the judgment to become final in order to apply for clarification. Clarification may also be requested for judgments that have not become final until the judgment is enforced (carried out). However, filing a request for clarification does not suspend the appeal period. Even after the judgment is enforced, it is possible to request clarification of the judgment until it is fully enforced. The judgment can only be clarified by the court that issued it.
The judge cannot decide on claims that he or she has forgotten in the judgment through clarification and add them to the judgment. Similarly, the judge cannot decide on attorney’s fees or interest that he or she has forgotten when rendering the judgment through clarification and include them in the judgment. Likewise, the contradiction between the short decision and the reasoned decision cannot be resolved through clarification.
The conclusion drawn from all these explanations is that a final judgment cannot be restricted, extended, or changed by way of clarification (Prof. Dr. Baki Kuru, Hukuk Muhakemeleri Usulü [Procedural Law], Sixth Edition 2001, vol. 5, p. 5270 et seq.).
In light of the above explanations, when the case at hand is examined, it is clear that the judgment could not be enforced due to the confusion regarding the defendant’s surname, that the court’s judgment was unenforceable, and that the decision rendered was ambiguous.
Therefore: The court should have investigated whether the person whose name and surname appear in the powers of attorney, the petition, the decision, and especially the father’s name and date of birth in the land registry records is the same person as the person in the population registry, and whether these names refer to the same person, and then made a decision based on the outcome. it is not in accordance with procedure and law to decide to reject the request for clarification of the ambiguous ruling because it is currently unenforceable.
While the court should comply with the reversal decision pointing to the same issues, it is contrary to procedure and law to insist on the previous decision rejecting the request on the grounds that no material error was made.
Therefore, the decision to uphold the ruling must be overturned.
CONCLUSION: The plaintiff’s attorney’s appeal is accepted, and the decision to uphold the ruling is overturned in accordance with Article 429 of the Code of Civil Procedure (HUMK) due to the reasons stated above and the Special Chamber’s decision to overturn the ruling. This decision was made unanimously on March 10, 2010.