Appointment of a Turkish Lawyer With Power Of Attorney
Author: Mr. Gökhan Cindemir , Phd Candidate , Senior Partner Lawyer cindemir@cindemir.av.tr
Representation of an applicant at the court is only possible by giving power of Attorney. In Turkish Law, representative is called as an “Attorney” and “Applicant” who will be represented called as a “Client”
In Turkish Law, the power of attorney can be solely issued on behalf of an attorney for practicing law in Turkey.
Power Of Attorney
Giving power of attorney to third person is regarded as unilateral legal transaction in Turkish Law. Power of attorney for legal case representation cannot be regarded as a contract. POA is not a service contract in Turkish law, it is only a document transferring client’s will to an attorney for representation.
The lawyer can be retained via POA even without its consent. Because giving power for representation is a transaction which can be carried out one-sided. This does not mean that attorney approves providing a service on behalf of a client. Issuing a power of attorney is regarded as an offer at last but not a mutual offer. On the other hand, attorney is not obliged to accept that offer. There are two sorts of power of attorney which can be issued.
POA for Specific Law Suit
POA for General Law Suit
Special lawsuit POA is used only to enable the lawyer for representation of a specific matter/ case.
General lawsuit POA enables Turkish attorney to represent the client in any case. The general procedural rule of POA for validity is to be approved by a notary. The only way to follow a case on behalf of a client is possible with a POA approved by a notary.
In foreign countries, POAs approved by Turkish embassies are also valid without notary stamp. In other words, Turkish Embassies’ duty is to check and approve whether the POA is given to an attorney according to relevant country.
POA’s Delivery To Court
It is not obligatory to deliver original POAs to the court. Turkish lawyer have authority to convert copied version of POAs as certified as original with signature or stamp pertaining to the lawyer.
As mentioned above, it is general rule to file a case with POA. However, there are some excepetional situations that the applicant can file a case without POA. In case that occurrence of a damage is imminent and delay of filing a case due to lack of POA might lead a damage, the court agrees to initiate the case on the condition that the POA shall be deliver to the court as soon as possible in the course of proceedings.
Context Of POA
Context of POA are the authorities which can be used on behalf of a lawyer. Therefore the client can limit the authorities of the lawyer. For instance, the client may insert a provision to the POA in order to limit settlement capabilities of the lawyer.
In divorce cases, it is compulsory to have photo of the client on the POA. The case can be followed-up with more than a lawyer. In that case, it is possible to write lawyer’s name to POA in order to retain more than a lawyer. In case of retaining more than one, the court correspondences and documents must be served to a lawyer selected by the court.
Resigning a Lawyer
The client certainly has right to expulse a lawyer by notifying the court with a petition. From that moment, the lawyer’s capability to follow the case is terminated.
The lawyer is also able to resign from the case by stating a sensible reason. This article is written in the light of new Turkish Procedural Law numbered 6100 which is entered into force on October 2011.
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