Criminal Law Responsibility Of Legal Entities In Turkey

According to Turkish Law, only natural persons can be counted as perpetrators. Due to their characteristics, legal entities cannot directly commit crimes and cannot be perpetrators. Nevertheless, the criminal liability of the legal entities due to the actions of the persons who act on behalf of legal entities had been a hot topic until the Turkish Penal Code no 5237 came into force. Provisions about the legal entities’ criminal liability in several penal codes other than the abovementioned Turkish Penal Code were another matter of the debates. Further, the Constitutional Court of Turkey held that legal entities’ criminal responsibility was not unconstitutional. In the Code No 5237 that came into force on the 1st of June, 2005; it was explicitly stated that legal entities cannot be imposed with penal sanctions. Since criminal responsibility is personal, the legal entities, which do not have any ability to commit an offence, cannot be punished due to the actions of persons who act on behalf of legal entities. In other respects, according to article 20 of the Turkish Penal Code, security measures can be applied to legal entities whereas penal sanctions cannot be applied. By Turkish Penal Code Art 20, provisions regarding legal entities’ criminal responsibility in other penal codes were repealed. However, it is hard to claim that the debate regarding criminal responsibility of legal entities is over for the doctrine. The security measures to be imposed on legal entities are prescribed in Art 60 of the Turkish Penal Code. Security measures to be imposed within Art 60 are following: Cancellation of permit and confiscation. In this paper, the conditions for legal entities’ security measure responsibility; the debates in this regard and the provisions made will be examined.