Article 165 of the Turkish Civil Code regulates divorce due to mental illness. If one of the spouses is mentally ill and therefore the common life becomes unbearable for the other spouse, this spouse can open a divorce case, provided that it is determined by the official medical board report that this disease is not possible to pass.

If the mental illness that causes divorce is a kind of mental illness that will prevent marriage, it must have emerged after marriage. Mental illness before marriage is one of the definitive marriage barriers.

In order for one spouse to file a divorce case based on mental illness, the other spouse must be mentally ill. Although the Civil Code counts not only any illness but only mental illness as the cause of divorce, and although there are no serious illnesses that do not hope to recover, divorce cannot be opened on the basis of diseases such as epilepsy, leprosy, syphilis, plague, AIDS.

In order to open a divorce case based on mental illness, there should be no possibility of mental illness to recover. In the event that the disease is likely to recover, the judge will reject the case that will not decide on a divorce.

One of the important conditions in the divorce case due to mental illness is to prove that common life has become unbearable. The judge does not immediately decide to divorce, although his mental illness has been proven by the official medical board report. The point to be investigated is whether or not common life has become unbearable.

SUPREME COURT 2.CIVIL DEPARTMENT 2004/4941 E.2004/7899 K. 15/06/2004 T.

It is understood that the defendant was a temporal type of epilepsy (epileptic) patient. The presence of this disease in one of the spouses is not a reason for divorce in itself. There was no evidence that the defendant had avoided the treatment of his illness, and it was also determined that he had the competence to carry out the marriage spiritually. Besides the defendant being a patient of the epilepsy, there is no other concrete event that will shake the foundation of the marriage and will not allow the continuation of the joint life. In that case, the decision to divorce in writing should not be considered correct.