Individual Application to the Turkish Constitutional Court: A Guide for Foreigners

Anyone — including a foreign national — who claims that a public authority in Turkey (Türkiye) has violated one of their fundamental rights protected by both the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights can apply to the Constitutional Court, once ordinary legal remedies have been exhausted (Law No. 6216, Art. 45). The application must be filed within thirty days of the exhaustion of remedies, or of learning of the violation where no remedy exists (Art. 47(5)). The Court can find a violation, send the case back for retrial, award compensation, and — in urgent cases involving a serious danger to life or physical or moral integrity — order interim measures, which is how deportations are stopped at the last stage.

For foreigners the individual application matters in three kinds of case: removal to a country where there is a risk of ill-treatment; unlawful or prolonged detention; and unfair proceedings in the ordinary courts. It is also the remedy that normally has to be used before an application to the European Court of Human Rights. This guide explains who can apply, about what, how, and what can realistically be expected.

• Who: anyone whose current and personal right is directly affected (Art. 46(1)).
• Foreigners: can apply, except for rights reserved to Turkish citizens (Art. 46(3)).
• Against what: acts, actions and omissions of public power — not legislation directly (Art. 45).
• Condition: all administrative and judicial remedies exhausted first (Art. 45(2)).
• Time limit: thirty days (Art. 47(5)); fifteen days after a valid excuse ends.
• Where to file: directly, through any court, or through Turkish missions abroad (Art. 47(1)).
• Fee: an application fee is payable (Art. 47(2)); legal aid can be requested.
• Interim measures: of the Court's own motion or on request (Art. 49(5)).

Legal status of this guide. It reflects Law No. 6216 on the Establishment and Rules of Procedure of the Constitutional Court as in force. Procedural detail — the application form, the interim measure procedure, the fee — is set by the Court's Internal Regulation and annual tariffs. Last updated: October 2026.

In this guide

• What the individual application is
• Who can apply
• Which rights are covered
• Exhausting other remedies first
• The thirty-day deadline
• How to apply
• Interim measures and deportation
• How the Court examines the case
• What the Court can order
• After the Constitutional Court: Strasbourg
• Frequently asked questions

What the individual application is

Since September 2012, individuals have been able to bring human-rights complaints directly to Turkey's Constitutional Court (Anayasa Mahkemesi) in Ankara. The procedure is called the individual application (bireysel başvuru).

It is not a further appeal. The Court does not re-decide the dispute, re-weigh the evidence or correct errors of ordinary law. Its question is narrower: did the public authorities, including the courts, violate one of the applicant's constitutional rights? The Law says in terms that the Court cannot review the appropriateness of a decision or issue rulings in the nature of an administrative act (Art. 50(1)), and that matters to be considered in ordinary appeal cannot be examined in an individual application (Art. 49(6)).

Understanding this limit saves wasted applications. "The court got the facts wrong" or "the court misapplied the Labour Law" is not a constitutional complaint. "I was not notified of the hearing", "the court gave no reasons for rejecting my key argument", "I am being sent to a country where I face torture" and "I have been detained for months without a decision" are.

Who can apply

An individual application may be made only by those whose current and personal right is directly affected by the act, action or omission complained of (Art. 46(1)). There is no application on behalf of the public or against a situation that affects someone else. Close relatives may apply in limited cases — for example, on behalf of a person who has died or who cannot act because of detention.

Foreign nationals

Foreigners have the right to apply. The single restriction is that they cannot make an individual application concerning rights granted only to Turkish citizens (Art. 46(3)) — in practice political rights such as voting, standing for election and entry into public service. The rights that matter to foreigners in trouble — life, prohibition of ill-treatment, liberty, fair trial, private and family life, property, effective remedy — belong to everyone.

The applicant does not need to be lawfully resident, or even present in Turkey. A person who has already been deported can apply from abroad about the deportation; an investor abroad can complain of interference with property in Turkey.

Companies and other legal persons

Private legal persons can apply only for violations of rights that belong to the legal person itself (Art. 46(2)) — property, fair trial, expression. Public legal persons cannot apply.

Which rights are covered

A right must pass a double test: it must be guaranteed in the Turkish Constitution and fall within the European Convention on Human Rights and the additional protocols to which Turkey is a party (Art. 45(1)). Social and economic rights that appear only in the Constitution — the right to work, to social security, to housing — are outside the procedure.

Right	Typical complaint by a foreigner
Right to life; prohibition of torture and ill-treatment	Removal to a country where there is a real risk of death or ill-treatment; conditions in a removal centre or prison
Liberty and security	Administrative detention without a lawful basis or effective review; pre-trial detention without sufficient reasons or for an excessive period
Fair trial	No interpreter; no lawyer during questioning; unreasoned judgment; excessive length of proceedings; denial of access to court
Private and family life	Deportation or entry ban separating a family; interference with correspondence or personal data
Property	Confiscation, expropriation without adequate compensation, cancellation of title
Expression, religion, assembly	Conviction or sanction for speech; restriction on worship
Effective remedy	No real possibility of challenging a deportation before removal

What is not covered deserves equal attention. There is no constitutional or Convention right for a foreigner to enter Turkey, to receive a residence or work permit, or to acquire citizenship. A refusal of a permit can be brought before the Constitutional Court only through another right — usually family life, or the fairness of the court proceedings that reviewed the refusal.

No direct challenge to legislation

An individual application cannot be made directly against legislative acts or regulatory administrative acts, and the Court's own decisions and acts excluded from judicial review by the Constitution cannot be challenged (Art. 45(3)). The complaint must be about how a rule was applied to you.

Exhausting other remedies first

All administrative and judicial remedies provided by law for the act complained of must be exhausted before applying (Art. 45(2)). The Constitutional Court is a subsidiary remedy: the ordinary courts must first have had the chance to put the matter right.

Three practical rules follow.

• Use every level available. If a judgment can be appealed to the regional court and then to the Court of Cassation or the Council of State, both must be used. An application filed while an appeal is pending is rejected as premature.
• Raise the constitutional point below. The substance of the complaint — "this removal exposes me to ill-treatment", "I was not given an interpreter" — must have been put to the ordinary courts. A complaint raised for the first time before the Constitutional Court is likely to be inadmissible.
• Only effective remedies count. A remedy that cannot realistically provide redress need not be exhausted, and extraordinary remedies do not restart the clock. Identifying the final effective decision is the single most error-prone step, because it fixes the deadline.

In immigration cases the chain is often short. An administrative court's judgment on a deportation order is final under the Law on Foreigners and International Protection; a criminal judgeship of peace's decision on administrative detention is final. The individual application follows directly from those decisions. The underlying procedures are described in our guides to appealing a deportation order and administrative detention.

The thirty-day deadline

The application must be made within thirty days of the date on which remedies were exhausted or, if no remedy is provided, of the date on which the violation became known (Art. 47(5)).

• The period normally runs from notification of the final decision to the applicant or the lawyer. Where the applicant learned of the reasoned decision earlier — for example by obtaining a copy from the file — the Court may count from that earlier date.
• A person who could not apply in time for a justified reason may apply within fifteen days of the excuse ending, with evidence of the excuse. The Court first decides whether the excuse is valid.
• For a continuing violation — detention that is still going on — the period does not start while the situation continues, but a decision reviewing the detention starts its own period.

Thirty days, not four months. People familiar with the Strasbourg court's time limit often assume they have months. They do not. A late application is inadmissible, and because the Constitutional Court must be used before Strasbourg, missing this deadline usually closes that door as well.

How to apply

Where

Applications may be filed directly with the Constitutional Court, through any court in Turkey, or through Turkish missions abroad (Art. 47(1)). Lawyers file electronically through the national judiciary system. A detainee can hand the application to the administration of the prison or removal centre for transmission. The date that counts is the date of filing at one of these points, not the date of arrival in Ankara.

The form and its contents

The application is made on the Court's official form, in Turkish. It must state (Art. 47(3)):

• the identity and address of the applicant and any representative;
• the right alleged to have been violated and the constitutional provisions relied on;
• the reasons why there has been a violation;
• the stages by which remedies were exhausted, and the date of exhaustion or of learning of the violation;
• any damage suffered.

Attached must be the evidence relied on, the originals or copies of the acts and decisions said to have caused the violation, and proof of payment of the fee. If a lawyer represents the applicant, a power of attorney is required (Art. 47(4)).

If something is missing, the registry gives a period of up to fifteen days to complete it and warns that the application will be rejected if this is not done without a valid excuse (Art. 47(6)).

The fee and legal aid

Individual applications are subject to a fee (Art. 47(2)), fixed each year in the fees tariff. An applicant who cannot pay may request legal aid in the application form, with evidence of means; the general rules described in our guide to legal aid in Turkey for foreigners apply.

Is a lawyer required?

No. An applicant may apply personally. In practice the admissibility rules are strict, the form is unforgiving and the complaint must be framed in constitutional terms, so the proportion of applications declared inadmissible is very high. This is one procedure in which representation by a lawyer familiar with the Court's case law makes a measurable difference.

Interim measures and deportation

The Court's Sections may, of their own motion or at the applicant's request, order the measures they consider necessary to protect the applicant's fundamental rights during the examination (Art. 49(5)). Under the Internal Regulation, an interim measure is ordered where there is a serious danger to the applicant's life or to his or her material or moral integrity.

For foreigners this is the provision that stops removals. It is used where a deportation is about to be carried out and the applicant claims that return would expose him or her to death, torture or inhuman treatment. It becomes decisive in two situations:

• where the administrative court has rejected the deportation appeal and removal can now proceed, while the individual application on the merits is still to be examined;
• where the deportation ground is one for which the appeal to the administrative court does not automatically suspend removal — broadly, the terrorism and public-security grounds — so that removal could take place before any court has looked at the risk.

A request for an interim measure must be concrete. The Court looks for the applicant's identity and exact situation (where detained, when removal is expected), the country of destination, and a specific, documented account of the risk there: previous persecution, a pending prosecution or sentence, membership of a targeted group, country reports that corroborate it, and medical evidence where relevant. General statements that the country is unsafe do not succeed.

Requests are examined quickly, often within days. If a measure is granted, the authorities must not remove the applicant until the Court decides otherwise, and the Court then gives priority to the main application. If it is refused, the application on the merits continues, but the applicant may be removed in the meantime. At that point a request to the European Court of Human Rights under its Rule 39 can be considered.

Who is protected from removal on the merits is covered in our guide to who cannot be deported from Turkey.

Removal imminent, or thirty days already running from a final judgment? Send the decision and its notification date. Message Yayla Law on WhatsApp or use the contact form. Interim measure requests need the destination-country evidence at the outset, so gather it now.

How the Court examines the case

1. Registry check. Formal completeness: form, annexes, fee, deadline.
2. Admissibility (Commissions). Commissions of judges check the conditions of Articles 45 to 47. An application can also be declared inadmissible where it is manifestly ill-founded, or where it has no significance for the application and interpretation of the Constitution or the definition of the scope and limits of fundamental rights and the applicant has suffered no significant damage (Art. 48(2)). Inadmissibility requires unanimity in the Commission; otherwise the file goes to a Section. Inadmissibility decisions are final (Art. 48(4)).
3. Communication. If the application is found admissible, a copy is sent to the Ministry of Justice, which may submit observations; the applicant may reply.
4. Merits (Sections). The Sections decide on the merits. Examination is on the file, though a hearing can be held where considered necessary (Art. 49(4)). Significant or divergent cases go to the Plenary.

There is no statutory time limit for the Court's decision. Urgent cases — interim measures, ongoing detention — are prioritised; ordinary fair-trial and property complaints can wait a long time, sometimes years.

An applicant found to have clearly abused the right of application — for instance by submitting false documents or concealing material facts — may be ordered to pay a disciplinary fine in addition to costs (Art. 51).

What the Court can order

At the end of the merits examination the Court decides that the applicant's right has or has not been violated. If it has, the Court rules on what must be done to remove the violation and its consequences (Art. 50(1)).

• Retrial. Where the violation arises from a court decision, the file is sent to the court concerned for a new trial. That court must decide in a way that removes the violation as explained in the Constitutional Court's judgment, on the file where possible (Art. 50(2)).
• Compensation. Where a retrial would serve no legal purpose, compensation may be awarded to the applicant.
• Referral to the general courts. Where the amount of compensation requires fuller examination, the Court may indicate that an action should be brought in the ordinary courts.
• Costs. The fee and a tariff-based lawyer's fee are awarded to a successful applicant.

In a deportation case, a violation judgment means the deportation order has to be reconsidered in a retrial by the administrative court in light of the risk identified. In a detention case, the usual consequence is a finding of violation with compensation. In a fair-trial case, the ordinary proceedings are reopened.

The Court's judgments are binding on all state organs. Judgments on the merits are notified to the parties and the Ministry of Justice and published on the Court's website.

After the Constitutional Court: Strasbourg

The European Court of Human Rights treats the individual application to the Turkish Constitutional Court as a remedy that must normally be exhausted before applying to Strasbourg. The sequence is therefore: ordinary courts, Constitutional Court, then the European Court, within the time limit set by the Convention — four months from the final domestic decision.

Two further points. First, the Strasbourg Court can indicate its own interim measures under Rule 39 in cases of imminent, irreparable harm, and in removal cases this may be requested where the Constitutional Court has refused a measure or cannot act in time. Second, the complaint made in Strasbourg must have been raised in substance before the Constitutional Court; what was not argued in Ankara cannot usually be argued for the first time in Strasbourg.

Frequently asked questions

Can a foreigner apply to the Turkish Constitutional Court?

Yes. Foreigners can apply for any covered right except those reserved to Turkish citizens, such as political rights. Residence status and presence in Turkey are not required.

What is the deadline for an individual application?

Thirty days from the exhaustion of remedies — normally notification of the final court decision — or from learning of the violation where no remedy exists.

Can the Constitutional Court stop my deportation?

Yes. It can order an interim measure where removal would create a serious danger to life or to physical or moral integrity. The request must be supported by specific evidence of the risk in the destination country.

Do I need a lawyer?

Not legally. But most applications are declared inadmissible on technical grounds, and inadmissibility decisions are final, so professional preparation is strongly advisable.

How much does it cost?

A fixed application fee set annually. An applicant without means can request legal aid in the application form.

Can the Court overturn the judgment in my case?

It does not act as an appeal court. If it finds a violation caused by a court decision, it sends the file back for retrial; the lower court must then remove the violation.

Can I complain about the refusal of my residence permit or citizenship?

Not as such. There is no constitutional right to a permit or to citizenship. A complaint is possible only through another right, such as family life or the fairness of the court proceedings.

How long does the Court take?

Interim measure requests are decided within days. Decisions on the merits can take from several months to some years, depending on the type of complaint.

Can I go directly to the European Court of Human Rights?

Normally no. The individual application must be used first. After the Constitutional Court's decision, an application to Strasbourg must be made within four months.

Legal basis and sources

• Law No. 6216 on the Establishment and Rules of Procedure of the Constitutional Court, Articles 45–51 — official consolidated text at mevzuat.gov.tr.
• Constitution of the Republic of Türkiye, Article 148.
• Internal Regulation of the Constitutional Court (interim measures; application form) — anayasa.gov.tr.
• European Convention on Human Rights, Article 35; Rules of Court, Rule 39.

This article provides general legal information on Turkish law as of October 2026. It is not legal advice. Admissibility depends on the exact procedural history of each case.