Electronic Documents as the Object of Document Forgery Offences

2019Murat Volkan DülgerPresentation / talk

Abstract

This work was written in Turkish. The summary on this page is a translation; the citation gives the original title in parentheses.

Electronic documents have very quickly taken their place in social life, and their legal nature has long been addressed, and continues to be addressed, by the legislature, the case law and legal scholarship. Indeed, the legal status and nature of electronic documents are regulated in several statutes in Turkish legislation. However, there is no express provision on whether electronic documents can be the object of forgery offences. The legislation contains no express provision stating that the concept of document regulated in Articles 204–212 of the Turkish Criminal Code (TCK) also covers electronic documents, but neither is there any provision that would stand in the way of this interpretation.

Both the literal (grammatical) interpretation of the concept of document and the will of the legislature as expressed in the preparatory works show that electronic documents can also be accepted as documents in the context of document forgery offences. The provisions on electronic documents in other statutes of our legal system, the rules of logic and sociological realities, for their part, make it unavoidably necessary that electronic documents be capable of being the object of forgery offences. For this reason, an electronic document that has the elements of written form, content and an identifiable issuer may be the object of document forgery offences.