THE PATERNITY SUIT IN THE NEW PROJECT OF THE TURKISH CIVIL CODE

The present Turkish Civil Code, has regulated the paternity suit, as a legal mean having the purpose to determine the father of the child born out of the wedlock (Turkish Civil Code 295). The Turkish Civil Code provides two kinds of paternity suit: the paternity suit with pecuniary effects, which does not create a legal filiation link between the father and the child; the paternity suit with personal effects which creates a legal filiation link between the father and the child. This distinction between the two kinds of the paternity suit has been critisized. In fact, the Federal Law dated June 25, 1976 which has entered into force on January 1, 1978 has abolished in Switzerland the paternity suit with pecuniary effects, keeping one kind of paternity suit, the paternity suit with personal effects. The Turkish Civil Code Project of 1984, following the Swiss precedent, has suppressed the paternity suit with pecuniary effects, preserving the paternity suit with personal effects which aims the establishment of a legal filiation link between the father and child born out of the wedlock. In our paper, we shall try first to remind the general frame of the paternity suit in the present Code, than to stress out the amendments contemplated by the new project of the Turkish Civil Code.