Postponement of the initiation of the public prosecution

Today, some changes are needed in the field of law in order to keep up with the developing and changing conditions. Especially within the framework of the concept of restorative justice, alternative solutions have been needed in the face of increasing crime rates, which guarantee fundamental rights and freedoms, ensure the reintegration of the criminal into society, respect the rights of the victim, and aim to alleviate the workload of the judiciary. In order to increase the effectiveness of criminal procedure, conciliation, prepayment and expedited trial procedure have been included in the Turkish legal system as alternative solutions. The institution of postponing the opening of a public lawsuit in the legal system is the subject of the study, as it is one of these alternative solutions. The institution of postponement of the opening of a public lawsuit, regulated in Article 171 of the Code of Criminal Procedure No. 5271, was introduced into our legal system only for children with the amendment made to the Child Protection Law in 2005, and has become applicable to adults as well, as a result of the amendment made to the Code of Criminal Procedure with Law No. 5560. The purpose of the institution of postponing the opening of a public case is not only to ensure that the suspect is reintegrated into society; It is to ensure that the damage suffered by the victim is compensated by respecting his/her rights. Another purpose in the implementation of the institution is to alleviate the state's burden of execution by keeping people who commit crimes for the first time away from the negative conditions brought by prison. The institution, whose field of application was kept quite narrow at first, began to be implemented more effectively with the changes in the law over time. The legislature does not require the implementation of the institution, but leaves it to the discretion of the public prosecutor. With this regulation, the public prosecutor's discretionary power has been expanded. Keywords: Postponement of the opening of a public case, principle of expediency, restorative justice, public prosecutor, discretionary power, expedited trial procedure.