The Issue of Nullifying a Judgment in Criminal Procedural Law
Gökhan ÖlmezThis study examines whether a judgment given by courts functionally empowered to conduct criminal proceedings can be legally nullified. As a judicial proceeding, judgment appears in legal world through occurrence of material, voluntary and formal conditions. Whether a judgment given by criminal court may be acceptably deemed null due to the nature of defect it contains and therefore be incapable of having any legal consequences is an important issue to explain in terms of judicial proceedings theory. In case of nullification of a judgment given by an empowered court, apart from that judgment’s unlawfulness by qualification of illegality, other questions are also to be answered, such as the criteria by which this qualification is made and which persons or authorities are authorized to make this classification by criminal procedural system adopting the audit of legal remedy. This study will exhibit opinions for and against the nullification of a judgment by emphasizing practical importance of the subject and identify whether the nullification of a criminal court judgment is acceptable within the framework theory of judicial proceedings prevalent in criminal procedural law.In this context, this study will provide explanations about practices developed by German Federal and State Courts based on their decisions about nullifying a judgment. Lastly, study will examine judgments indicative of a nullification in Turkish criminal procedural law and discuss whether the practice of distinctly subjecting a judgment to nullification is accurate or not without regard to the general legal remedial system ensured in Turkish Criminal Procedural Code.
Ceza Muhakemesinde Hükmün Yokluğu Sorunu
Gökhan ÖlmezBu çalışmada ceza muhakemesinde fonksiyonel olarak yargılama yapma yetkisine sahip mahkemeler tarafından tesis edilen hükmün hukuken yokluğunun kabul edilebilmesinin mümkün olup olmadığı tartışma konusu yapılmaktadır. Ceza muhakemesinde yargılama makamı tarafından gerçekleştirilen bir ceza muhakemesi işlemi olarak hüküm; maddi, iradi ve şekli unsurların oluşmasıyla hukuk dünyasında tezahür eder. Ceza mahkemesinin tesis ettiği ve bünyesinde bu unsurları barındıran hükmün, taşıdığı hukuka aykırılığın niteliği dolayısıyla yok şeklinde nitelendirilmesinin ve hukuken hiçbir sonuç doğurma yeteneğinin bulunmadığının kabul edilebilir olup olmadığı ise muhakeme işlemleri teorisi açısından açıklanması önem arz eden bir konudur. Mahkemenin tesis ettiği hükmün bünyesinde barındırdığı hukuka aykırılığa dair bir vasıflandırma yapmak suretiyle, salt hukuka aykırı olmasının dışında ayrıca yokluğunun da kabul edilebilir olup olmadığı; yokluktan bahsedilebilmesinin mümkün olduğunun kabulü durumunda ise bu nitelendirmenin hangi kriterlere göre yapılacağı ve bu belirlemeyi yapmaya yetkili kişi veya mercilerin kimler olduğu sorularının kanun yolu denetiminin benimsendiği ceza muhakemesi sistemine uygun bir biçimde cevaplandırılması gerekir. Bu çalışmada, ceza muhakemesi hukuku esasları çerçevesinde hükmün hukuken yokluğu müessesesine dair ileri sürülen lehe ve aleyhe görüşler, konunun taşıdığı pratik önem vurgulanarak ortaya koyulacak ve bu konu ceza muhakemesi hukukuna hakim olan muhakeme işlemleri teorisi çerçevesinde ele alınacaktır. Bu kapsamda çalışmada, Alman Federal Mahkemesi’nin ve eyalet mahkemelerinin hükmün yokluğuna dair verdikleri kararlar ekseninde geliştirdikleri uygulama hakkında açıklamalarda bulunulacaktır. Nihayet çalışmada, Türk ceza muhakemesi hukukunda hükmün hukuken yokluğu tespitinde bulunulan yargı kararlarına dair değerlendirmeler yapılacak, söz konusu uyuşmazlıklar bağlamında tesis edilen hükümlerin Ceza Muhakemesi Kanunu’nda öngörülen kanun yolu sistemi işletilmeksizin yokluk müeyyidesine tabi tutulmasına yönelik olarak benimsenen uygulamanın isabetli olup olmadığı tartışılacaktır.
The issue of nullifying a judgment is one of the most arguable subjects in criminal procedural law. According to the prevailing opinion in the literature on criminal procedural law, judgments that are afflicted with particularly obvious defects are incapable of producing the intended effects due to consequences contrary to the general structure of criminal procedural law. Recognizing the validity of such judgments is to be refused due to being clearly intolerable for the legal community as a result of the extent and weight of their defects. Nullifying a judgment allows the recognition of a court judgment to be refused, thus allowing everyone (e.g., courts and enforcement authorities) to ignore said judgment without further judicial elimination proceedings. The supporters of this opinion use the term nullification to refer to the absence of the legal effects of a judgment. However, providing an exhaustive list of defects that constitute nullification is impossible.
Whether a judgment given by a criminal court may be acceptably deemed to nullified due to the nature of the defects it contains and therefore also be incapable of having any legal consequences is an important issue to explain in terms of the theory of judicial proceedings. In the case of the acceptance of the nullification of a judgment given by an empowered court, apart from the judgment being considered unlawful by classification of the qualification of illegality, questions such as the criteria by which the qualification is made and the persons or authorities who are authorized to make this classification are to be answered in accordance with the criminal procedural system adopting the audit of legal remedy.
As a judicial proceeding, judgments appear in the legal world through the occurrence of material, voluntary, and formal conditions. A judgment that contains these conditions legally subsists without having importance to whether its context is legally correct or not or whether it has complied with criminal procedural principles or not. In a criminal procedural system that foreseen an audit of legal remedy, the legal nullification of a judgment may be unaccepted regardless of the qualification of its illegality. An opinion that differs from the foreseen system of criminal procedure regarding the illegality of a judgment and basing this on the inconvenience of a judgment resulting in any legal consequences upon being rendered are undesirable for legal security. In this respect, regardless of the qualification of the illegality of a judgment a judicial authority has handed down, this illegality is to be resolved in an audit of legal remedy.
As a result, the Turkish criminal procedural system is not designed to be able to reveal the legal consequences from a judgment being nullified. Due to the principle of legal security, the judgments courts hand down have an essential authority. The illegalities of these are eliminated through the audit of legal remedy, which is the accepted control mechanism in the structural scope of the criminal procedural system. One category is found that indicates how the nullification of a judgment is not predicated in the Criminal Procedural Code. The Criminal Procedural Code does not include nullification with regard to any illegality of judgment; regardless of the qualification of the illegality, the code has decided that all illegalities shall be discussed in an appeal and audit of legal remedy. In this respect and distinct from the illegalities subject to legal remedy, no reasons for nullification can be mentioned that refer to self-invalidity or that have foreseen a criterion of distinction. The category of nullifying a judgment is unnecessary in the Turkish legal system, as it particularly includes the Chief Public Prosecutor Objection and the Reversal in Favor of the Law as extraordinary legal remedies, thus revealing the Turkish legal system to have a more comprehensive system of audit of legal remedy comparted to German criminal procedural law.
