Judgement Of Conviction
A judgement of conviction is a decision rendered when the offence charged against the accused is established (Article 223/5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). In order to issue a conviction, the act committed by the accused must be considered as an offence in the law at the time of the judgement.
The judgement of conviction must be reasoned. A reasoned verdict is a detailed decision written by the criminal courts to explain the legal grounds on which they have established a verdict by evaluating the claims and defence, facts, evidence and requests.
The following points shall be included in the justification of the judgement of conviction (Article 230/1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure):
Opinions put forward in the claim and defence
Throughout the entire proceedings, the prosecution and the defence present their arguments orally or in written submissions to the court on the criminal dispute that is the subject of the indictment and the criminal proceedings. The judgement of conviction should outline the views of the prosecution and defence on the dispute that is the subject of the criminal proceedings. In this way, whether the criminal proceedings are conducted in accordance with the triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, which is the logic of the criminal proceedings, is controlled by the judgement of conviction.
Discussion and evaluation of the evidence
The discussion and evaluation of the evidence is the most important part of the judgement of conviction. The criminal court must discuss all kinds of evidence that serve to prove the offence subject to trial and evaluate them by stating their importance in terms of conviction. In the justification of the conviction decision, the evidence taken as basis for the judgement and rejected evidence must be stated. Evidence taken as the basis of the judgement is the evidence that proves the paragraph of the judgement and enables the judgement to be formed in the direction of acquittal, conviction, etc. The rejected evidence must also be shown separately in the judgement of conviction. Evidence that is requested to be put forward and discussed at the hearing shall be rejected in the following cases (Article 206/2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure):
If the evidence was obtained illegally,
İf the event to be proved by evidence has no effect on the decision,
If the request is made only for the purpose of prolonging the trial.
In the judgement of conviction, the evidence found in the file and obtained by unlawful methods must be stated separately and clearly.
Opinion reached
The opinion reached by the court at the end of the criminal proceedings, the act of the defendant which is deemed to constitute an offence and its qualification must be shown in the conviction decision. The sentence must be determined according to the order and principles determined in accordance with the relevant articles of the Turkish Penal Code, taking into account the requests put forward by the parties.
Basis for the Decision on Personalisation Institutions and Additional Security Measures
The grounds for the postponement of the sentence, the conversion of the imprisonment sentence into a judicial fine or one of the measures or the application of additional security measures or the acceptance or rejection of the requests regarding these matters must be included in the justification of the conviction decision.
You can access our other article examples and petition examples by clicking here.