Common Characteristics of Legal Rules

1. Legal rules have certain templates and based on a value judgment:

- Legal rules are based on a value judgment in order not to conflict with
ethics.
- It is important that value judgments are accepted by the society.
- Value judgments should be taken into account not only in the formation of
legal rules but also in the application of legal rules.
- Ex. Civil Code art.153/1 «if one marries at young age without the consent of
his/her legal representative, the legal representative may bring a lawsuit fot
the cancellation of marriage.»
 Common Characteristics of Legal Rules

2. Legal rules regulate human behaviour,actions, incidents and acts.

- Social life can continue in order, people need a team that they fit in with
each other and with society It depends on the existence of rules.
- For the continuation of social life, human behavior must be regulated by
legal rules.
- According to Aristotales «Man is a social being, people have to live
collectively.»
 Common Characteristics of Legal Rules

3. Legal rules include general, objective ,abstract and continuous

principles:
3.1. Generality:
- Being general means that the rules of law are applied for all persons in the
same situation.
- However, this principle is not absolute. A difference can be made for people
in different situations.
- Ex. Military service is compulsory only for male citizens of a certain age. The
generality here includes male citizens of certain age.
 Common Characteristics of Legal Rules

3. Legal rules include general, objective ,abstract and continuous

principles:
3.2. Objective and abstract:
- Legal rules are applied not for a single event, but for all events and
transactions with the same characteristics.
- As per these principle, it is applied to all of the similar incidents as long as
legal rule is in effect.
 Common Characteristics of Legal Rules
• 3. Legal rules include general, objective ,abstract and continuous
principles:
3.3. Continuity:
-From the moment the rules of law come into force, they apply to all events
and transactions that occur until they are revoked.
- Continuity of legal rules are the results of legal rules being general and
abstract.
 Common Characteristics of Legal Rules

4. Legal rules are bases of a sanctions.

-Legal rules give both authorization and obligations to individuals.
- In case individuals fail to fulfill the obligations imposed by the law, the public
authority forces the person to fulfill these obligations.
- These means of compulsion are called sanctions.
- The purpose of the sanction is to make the person act in accordance with the law.
- To be more precise who violate legal rules may receive sanctions as a result of
actions.
 Principles relating to offences and penalties
(Article 38/1 of the Turkish Republic Constitution)

• No one shall be punished for any act which does not constitute a criminal
offence under the law in force at the time committed; no one shall be given
a heavier penalty for an offence other than the penalty applicable at the
time when the offence was committed.
• The provisions of the above paragraph shall also apply to the statute of
limitations on offences and penalties and on the results of conviction.
Penalties, and security measures in lieu of penalties, shall be prescribed only
by law. No one shall be considered guilty until proven guilty in a court of law.
No one shall be compelled to make a statement that would incriminate
himself/herself or his/her legal next of kin, or to present such incriminating
evidence.
 Types of Sanctions

• The types of sanctions vary according to the law branches.

• For example,
- There is a prison sentence in the criminal law.
- In administrative law there is the demolition of the illegal structure.
- Sanctions in tax law, such as business closure or fines are available.
- There is compensation sanction in the law of obligations.
Exception to Sanction
• The most important exception to sanction is «natural(imperfect)
obligations»
• Natural(imperfect) obligations has no sanctions.
• Natural(imperfect) obligations are defined as obligations which do not give
the creditor right of claim and bringing suits the deptor.
• Ex. gambling and betting debts, defence of extinctive
prescription(limitation period)
 Types of Sanctions

Security Cancellation in
Punishment Compulsary Compensations Invalidty Administrative
Precautions Executions Acts

Prison Non-judical
Fines
sentence Punishments
 Punishment

• Punishment is a sanction that is applied to perpetrator of the crime

according to the vioalation of the law anf faultiness and that gets one
deprived of certain things.
• Turkish Penal Law that was put in to effect on June 1, 2005 separates
sanction into two main parts as punishment and security precautions in the
scope of criminal law.
 Prison Sentence/Fines/Non-Judical
Punishments
- According to Turkish Criminal Code article 46 prison sentences are as
follows:
a. Aggravated life imprisonment
b. Life Sentence
c. Temporal prison sentence
- Fines refers any sanction towards property of convict.
Fines are divided into judical fines and administrative fines.
- Non-judical punishments are given to persons on a certain status such as çivil
servant or students according to legal rules they are dependent. Ex. Warning,
cutting salaries, stopping promotion, temporary export punishment.
 Security Precautions
- TCK regulates two types of security precautions:
a. Being deprived of using certain rights
b.Confiscation.
- There are two types of confiscation:
a. Confiscation of property
b. Confiscation of revenue
 Compulsory Execution

• Compulsory execution forcing people to comply with command of legal rule

which is implemented by state organs.
• Ex. If the deptor does not pay his dept, he does not receive any punishment,
but lender may apply to the court or else may go to debt enforcement office
and demand his debt to be reimbursed by force.
 Compensation

Compensation is that a person who commits a harmful act suffers the

consequences of that action.
• The source of the act of loss may be a violation of a rule of law(tort) or
breach of contract.
• There are three types of compensation:
- Compensation rising from a tort
- Non-pecuniary damages
- Compensation rising from contradiction to debt.
 Invalidity
• Executing a transaction by disobeying a set of terms prescribed by legal
rules may lead to an invalid transaction’s no getting validity.
• Invalidty may arise as «nonexistence» in some cases.
• Also it may occurs like void transactions.
• Nonexistance example: any marriage performed not before marriage
officer.
• Nullity example:Any commercial aggrement regarding buying and selling
drugs.
 Cancellation in Administrative Acts

• Persons who claim that legal transactions made by public entities are
unlawful should file a lawsuit.
• These lawsuits are aimed at the cancellation of the transaction made by the
public entities.
• If the transacton caused damage, compensation can also be requested from
the public entities.
 REFERENCES

• Yücel Oğurlu/Bünyamin Gürpınar, Introduction to Turkish Law,2015.

• Mahmut Yavaşi, An Introduction to Turkish Law for non-law students ,2015.
• Fatih Bilgili/Ertan Demirkapı, Hukukun Temel Kavramları, 2019.