The Anatomy of Turkey's New Private International Law Regime Anatomie des neuen türkischen IPR-Gesetzes

A new »Statute on International Private Law and Law of Civil Procedure« has been enacted and has been in force since 12 December 2007. The new Statute incorporates detailed provisions, mainly regarding different types of contracts. These provisions are deeply influenced by developments seen in Germany and Switzerland. For contracts in general, the rule of »the most closely connected law« has been introduced and is described as the law of habitual residence of the characteristic performer at the time of conclusion of the contract. The principle of party autonomy and a choice of the applicable law has been confirmed, with the exception of those contracts where parties may not be considered economically equal to each other, as in the case of employment contracts and contracts relevant to consumers. Many provisions of the Statute allocate broad discretionary power to the judge when the applicable provisions are not mandatory and where there is no contrary agreement among the parties. In some cases the judge may, according to his own discretion, select the choice of law rule which he considers to be the most relevant from several potentially applicable rules. In the area of family law, the former basic rule of nationality has been kept intact, but the law of domicile has been replaced with the law of habitual residence.In the field of civil procedure the exclusive jurisdiction of Turkish courts is limited to cases where the weaker party deserves protection, as in the case of employment or consumer contracts.