Slander crime under the Turkish Criminal Law

Today, within the framework of globalization and technological developments, access to information has become easier and the speed of spreading information has increased. Over time, it has been seen that this situation has positive and negative consequences for humanity. Thanks to the developments and changes experienced, it has become easier for people to access useful information. However, when this situation started to be used by malicious people for different purposes, innocent people were victimized. The communication age we live in has made communication between people fast and easy. Especially with the spread of the virtual environment and social media, people have become more able to communicate with each other and with the society. This situation, which was used by malicious people, caused the accusations against innocent people to spread throughout the society, causing serious harm to them. These accusations, which from time to time remain as defamation in the eyes of the society, have resulted in innocent persons becoming suspect-defendant in the eyes of the authorities in some cases. For this reason, the "crime of slander" has been regulated in the Turkish Penal Code No. 5237 in order to protect innocent people from unjust accusations. The crime of slander has taken place in almost every legal system from past to present. In Turkish Law, the crime of slander is included in article 267 of the Turkish Penal Code No. 5237. It is regulated in the article that the crime of slander can be committed through the press or by denunciation or complaint. Within the framework of this regulation, articles 28 and 74 of the Constitution were evaluated and it was tried to be explained within the scope of the study in which cases the "right" limit was exceeded and the crime of slander was passed. In our study, the crime of slander has been examined by comparing the regulations of the abolished Penal Code No. 765 and the Turkish Penal Code No. 5237. Legal value protected by the crime of defamation; The text of the law has been evaluated within the framework of doctrinal views and judicial decisions. The effective repentance regulation brought by the legislator for the crime of slander is also discussed in detail in our study.