Erasure Of Disgraceful Offences From Criminal Records
The General Directorate of Criminal Registry is responsible for keeping and archiving criminal records. It can be said that the General Directorate of Criminal Records restricts the archiving of expunged criminal records to offences that are explicitly stated to be disgraceful in the relevant laws. Since the ambiguity of the disgraceful offence may result in different and more severe penalties for some offences, it is imperative that it is regulated by taking into consideration the principle of “No crime and punishment without law” of human rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and our own Constitution. Again, the prohibition of analogy in criminal law is contrary to the basic principles of law, since the preposition “like” allows the offences in question to be multiplied by analogy.
Therefore, it does not seem healthy to leave such an important issue in terms of fundamental rights and freedoms to the discretion of judicial bodies, especially the administration. However, in the amendments made to the Special Criminal Laws by the Law dated 10.07.2008 and numbered 5786, the terms “disgraceful offence or similar” were not used and the offences were listed one by one. As there are offences common to all laws, offences listed in some special laws are not listed in some other special laws.
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Offences deemed to be disgraceful are deleted from the judicial record, but are recorded in the archive record. Criminal record and archive record are different from each other in this respect. If the archive record is deleted in these offences, the conditions in Article 12 of the Criminal Registry Law No. 5352 must be fulfilled. These conditions are in accordance with the aforementioned law article:
“Archive information;
a) Upon the death of the person concerned,
b) For convictions that cause deprivation of a right under Article 76 of the Constitution and laws other than the Turkish Penal Code, from the date when the conditions for archiving the record are fulfilled;
1. After fifteen years, provided that a decision is taken to restore the prohibited rights,
2. after the expiry of thirty years without the requirement of a decision on the restoration of prohibited rights,
c) For other convictions, the record shall be completely deleted after five years from the date when the conditions for archiving the record are fulfilled.
(2) In the event that the act is decriminalised by law, the judicial registry and archive records relating to the conviction for this offence shall be completely deleted without a request.
(3) In case of finalisation of the decision of acquittal or non-prosecution as a result of reversal in favour of the law or renewal of the trial, the judicial registry and archive record of the previous conviction shall be completely deleted.
(4) Records relating to the security measures imposed due to mental illness shall be completely erased upon the completion of their execution.” It is regulated as follows.
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