Limitation of contractual responsibility

Turkish Code of Obligations, Article 112 and the subsequent provisions can be applied to the debtor, who doesn?t perform his contractual obligations. When the aforementioned provisions are analyzed, it can be seen that the responsibility of debtor is kept wide. This is because the debtor is held responsible for not only his behavior, but also the behavior of the persons, who help the performance of obligations. In addition, since the debtor has to prove that he has no fault; his legal situation becomes more difficult. As a result, the responsibility of the debtor has been limited by the law maker. The criteria for this limitation are as follows: Culpability, bilaterality, appropriate causal connection, unlawfulness, amount, assets, and duration. The common characteristic of these criteria that are accepted by laws is, to limit the responsibility of the debtor; there is no need to a contract made by the parties. In other words, when it is found out that one of these criteria exists, the debtor gets rid of his obligation for compensation. In this way the balance between the interests of parties can be restored. Since most of the provisions provided by the TCO are not statutory, the parties can provide otherwise. Thanks to this, the debtor, by concluding a contract with his creditor, can lessen his responsibility. However, the law maker does not accept all these contracts valid. When the equity is taken into consideration, these contracts are required to be made void in some situations. In practice, it can be observed that the contractual responsibility is generally limited by using the irresponsibility clauses, which take place in the general terms and conditions. If the field of application of the irresponsibility clauses in individual contracts is restricted, there can be no doubt that the same restrictions shall be applied to the general terms and conditions. This is because the creditor has no right to change these clauses. Moreover, by going a step further, it can be said that the responsibility clauses, which are legally binding, shall be accepted as invalid, when they are included in general terms and conditions. However, to make this invalidation possible, the legal situation of the creditor should be substantially worsened. This interpretation is also supported by some provisions of the TCO, which are provided on the validity of these irresponsibility clauses (e.g. TCO Art. 301). Key Words: 1. Contractual responsibility, 2. Limitation by law, 3. Limitation by irresponsibility contracts, 4. Limitation by general terms and conditions, 5. Limitation of responsibility in some types of contracts.