Turkey

• The Constitution of 1982, the highest law
• Codes and statutes, with a Civil Code based on the Swiss model and a Criminal Code influenced by European codes
• Decisions of the Court of Cassation and the Council of State, which guide lower courts
• The European Convention on Human Rights, which Turkey has joined

• The Court of Cassation (Yargıtay) for ordinary civil and criminal cases
• The Council of State (Danıştay) for administrative cases
• The Constitutional Court, which reviews laws and hears individual applications on rights

A law degree, a one-year traineeship and then registration with a local bar association.

• The Swiss Civil Code was adopted, in translation, in 1926, one of the clearest examples of one country copying another's code.
• Turkey has separate ordinary and administrative court systems, as France does.
• The Constitutional Court has heard individual rights complaints since 2012.
• Courts and legal institutions have changed a good deal in recent years, so check current developments.

Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, Japan

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Turkey as: Civil law. It names the systems in order of importance.

The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.

Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria.

• Constitutional Court of Turkey (English pages)

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.