Legitimate defense

The most crucial subject of criminal law is undoubtedly whether an act causes a criminal conduct and if so, what penalty should be imposed. Whether an offender will be penalised or not due to his/her act is determined by the act's compliance with laws.In general theory of crime, criminal provisions are considered as materialelements, moral elements and illegal elements. To be able to mention an act as "illegal", the act of an offender should be illegal and the act should not be allowed by the legal order. However, in case the legal order justifies and allows the act, this allowed act becomes acceptable in laws. Therefore, reasons that allow acts by the legal order and eliminate their non-compliance with laws are called "reasons in compliance with laws". In the presence of these reasons, acts proposed to be criminal in laws are not considered as criminal, in other words, the act causing a criminal conductraises in compliance with laws.In our study westudied "legitimatedefense". It is theoldest of these reasons and is widely accepted by almost all criminal laws. The 25th article of the Turkish Criminal Law centres that "No penaltyshould be imposedto an offender who acts with immediate necessity, according to the prevailing conditions, to repulse or eliminate an unjust assault against his or another person'srights, of which the recurrence is highly expected." The content of the article means that legitimate defense complies with laws.If any case is to be called as legitimate defense, both conditions attack and defense should be included in the case. Hence, if the level of defense is overrated, it should be taken into account during judgement.If negligence is present in the legitimate defense, the penalty should be abated. If the level of defense is overrated due to excusable causes like excitement, fear and worry, the offender is not to be penalised.An offender who has putative reasons in the presence of legitimate defense conditions is to take advantage of the case and is not to be penalised. Legitimate defense against the third person is also accepted in Turkish Criminal Law and the offender is not penalised. The article of the law quotes "No penalty should be imposedto an offender …hisoranotherperson'srights…" and the law exactly describes legitimate defense for the third person.Legitimate defense is an important way to judge the acts and as long as it's implemented well, it's convenient to prove that the offender is right in his/her acts and to make some acts comply with laws.