This is the English version of a Turkish article. The original, with further detail and linked petition templates, is at Bilirkişi Raporuna İtiraz: İki Haftalık Süre ve Doğru Yöntem.
An expert report is a tool for evaluating evidence, not a judgment, and it does not bind the judge — but in practice a report that is not challenged is usually adopted as it stands. The period for objecting is two weeks from service of the report (Article 281 of the Code of Civil Procedure). Silence amounts to acceptance.
Your case has been running for a long time and one day an expert report appears on the file. The figures are lower than you expected, or the report has not dealt with part of the events at all. There is one thing to do at that point, and the time for it is short.
When Is an Expert Appointed?
Article 266 is clear: the court turns to an expert where the resolution of a matter requires special or technical knowledge outside the law. Conversely, an expert may not be consulted on matters that can be resolved with the general and legal knowledge required of a judge.
The distinction matters. How a contract is to be construed, whether a dismissal was justified, or whether a witness is to be believed are legal questions and cannot be put to an expert. Calculating severance pay, the technical cause of a defect in a building, or whose signature appears on a document are technical questions.
The kinds of expert most often encountered are:
- Accounting experts: employment claims, damages and interest calculations.
- Experts on fault: apportioning fault in traffic and workplace accident files.
- Construction experts: defective buildings, valuations and expropriation files.
- Handwriting experts: examination of signatures and writing.
- Medical experts: the degree of disability and treatment costs.
The Period: Two Weeks
Under Article 281, the parties may ask, within two weeks of service of the report, for matters they consider incomplete to be completed or for points of uncertainty to be clarified.
The period runs from the date the report was served, not from the date it appeared on the court portal. Where a party has a lawyer, service is made electronically, and service is then deemed to have taken place at the end of the fifth day following the day it arrived electronically.
What happens if the two weeks are missed? The right to object is as a rule lost and the court may base its judgment on the report — even if the report is later shown to be wrong. Saying “the report was mistaken” on appeal does not make good an objection that was not filed in time.
How Is the Objection Drafted?
An effective objection does not attack the report as a whole; it shows point by point why each finding is wrong. A petition that says no more than “we object to the report” leaves the court nothing to examine.
The principal grounds are:
- Calculation error: the wage, period, interest rate or date used may be wrong. Show the correct figure and its source.
- Incomplete examination: a document, witness statement or piece of evidence on the file may not have been considered at all. Identify it by page number.
- Exceeding the expert's role: instead of a technical assessment the expert may have made a legal characterisation — deciding, for example, that a dismissal was justified. That invalidates that part of the report.
- Wrong method: the method of calculation, the tariff applied or the comparator chosen may be wrong.
- Inconsistency: the report contradicting itself or another document on the file.
The petition must end with a concrete request: a supplementary report from the same expert, the appointment of a new panel, or the calling in of a particular document and a fresh report.
A Supplementary Report or a New Expert?
These are different requests requiring different reasons.
A supplementary report asks the same expert to complete points left incomplete or unclear. Where an item needs adding to a calculation, or an overlooked document needs considering, this is the appropriate route, and courts grant such requests more readily.
A request for a new expert rests on the contention that the report is unreliable as a whole: the expert's field not matching the dispute, the report contradicting itself, or serious doubt about impartiality. The reasons must be strong.
Where impartiality is in doubt, a challenge to the expert may also be made. Grounds similar to those for challenging a judge apply, and the challenge must be raised without delay once the ground becomes known.
Does the Report Bind the Judge?
No. Article 282 provides that the judge evaluates an expert report freely. The judge may adopt it, accept part and reject part, or set it aside entirely.
That theoretical freedom does not make life easier for the objecting party. If the judge is to decide a technical question against the report, they must give reasons, and those reasons can only rest on other technical material on the file. Supplying that material to the court is the real function of an objection.
Strong objections therefore often rest on a party-instructed expert opinion. Article 293 allows the parties to obtain a scientific opinion from an expert of their own choosing. It does not replace the court expert's report, but it demonstrates the error concretely.
The period for objecting is two weeks from service of the report. If no objection is made within it, the court may base its judgment on the report, and that omission cannot as a rule be made good on appeal. Note the date the day the report reaches you.