Deception in criminal law

Deception has a wide usage area in legal science. In the field of private law, it appears as a state of "invalidity of will power" that frees the deceived party from commitment to the contract and causes compensation for the person performing it, and in the scope of criminal law, it appears as a necessary element for the formation of the basic or qualified form of many crimes regulated in the Turkish Penal Code and some other laws. Although deception is considered to have a special importance in terms of criminal law, since it contains a very wide set of behaviors and constitutes an element of the crime that protects many different legal values, the law does not include any definitions or explanations for the concept. With this aspect, deception is accepted as a concept that develops around doctrine and practice. However, even today, no concrete solution has been reached regarding exactly what should be understood from the concept of deception in criminal law, whether the meaning of the concept and the scope it contains are different from those in private law, if it is different, how to make a distinction in this direction. In this study, the issue of deception in criminal law has been discussed. Firstly, the concepts of deception and fraudulent behavior in general and the relationship of deception with similar concepts were examined. Then, the historical evolution of deception and its current regulations in which the concept is included were examined. In addition, judicial deception and deception in private law are discussed. Afterwards, the distinction between deception in private law and deception in criminal and the issue at which stage the lie will turn into criminal deception are examined. Finally, deception in Turkish criminal law and crimes that involves deception as an element are discussed.