The duty of the Serious Criminal Courts is regulated in Article 12 of the Law No. 5235, and whether a crime committed is an offence falling within the jurisdiction of the Serious Criminal Court is determined by taking into account the criteria introduced by this article in terms of the nature and amount of the crime. In addition, offences that are not explicitly stated to fall within the jurisdiction of the heavy criminal court are heard by the Criminal Court of First Instance.
Serious Criminal Courts are generally assigned for offences punishable by imprisonment of 10 years or less, and there are 3 basic criteria for the offences that fall within the jurisdiction of the Serious Criminal Court:
Without prejudice to the cases where the law assigns a separate duty,
The offence of plunder (extortion) (TPC Art. 148, 149),
The offence of extortion (TPC Art. 250/1 and 2),
The offence of forgery of an official document (Article 204/2 of the TPC),
Qualified fraud offence (Art. 158 TPC),
Fraudulent bankruptcy offence (Art. 161 TPC),
Offences against the Security of the State (302,303,304,305,306,307,308),
Offences against the constitutional order and the functioning of this order (309,310,311,312,313,314,315,316),
Offences against national defence (except Articles 318, 319, 324, 325 and 332),
Offences against state secrets and espionage (326,327,328,329,329,330,331,332,333,334,335,336,336,337,338,339),
Offences falling within the scope of the Anti-Terrorism Law No. 3713.
Offences punishable by aggravated life imprisonment, life imprisonment and imprisonment for more than ten years;
Offences of voluntary manslaughter (TCK Art. 81, 82),
The offence of aggravated wounding (Art. 87/4 TPC),
Causing death by negligence (TPC Art. 85/2),
Embezzlement offence (Article 247 of the Turkish Penal Code),
Bribery offence (Article 252 of the Turkish Penal Code),
A target period of 300 to 390 days has been set for the finalisation of cases in these courts.
However, each file and type of offence must be evaluated individually. For this reason, you should definitely get help from an expert lawyer.
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