The Role of Public Policy in the Enforcement of Foreign Custody Judgments: An Example of Joint Custody in Turkish Law

Societies transfer their basic values to new generations through child custody within the family. Therefore, bringing up children in healthy families is beneficial to society. Despite the importance of maintaining the sustainability of the family, which is the basic unit of society, when family sustainability is not possible, a basic duty of the courts must be to provide the best custody model for the welfare of the child after the dissolution of a marriage. Studies have shown that children have a better psychological state and can more easily overcome the trauma of divorce when the courts rule for joint custody than when the courts rule for sole custody. Joint custody, provided for in many legal systems, is not regulated in Turkish law. Thus, requests for the enforcement of foreign joint custody judgments are rejected by Turkish courts for violating public policy. Turkish courts incorrectly consider foreign law, which provides different rules, as grounds for public policy intervention. In this study, it is found that Turkish courts can rule for joint custody by depending on international conventions. Within this framework, it is not possible to reject the enforcement of foreign joint custody judgments by depending on the public policy exception.