Mahmut Esat Bozkurt (1892 – 21 December 1943) was a Turkish jurist, politician, government minister and academic.

[3] Mahmut Esat was born to Hasan Bey of Hacı Mahmutoğulları in Kuşadası, Aydın Vilayet during the Ottoman Empire era in 1892.

[8] In June 1919, after Greek landing at Smyrna, he returned home to join the Kemalists in the Turkish War of Independence.

After the Republic was proclaimed on 29 October 1923, he was elected a deputy of İzmir and served as Minister of Justice in the 3rd, 4th and the 5th government of Turkey between 22 November 1924 – 27 September 1930.

[6] As Minister of Justice, he was member of the Reform Council for the East (Turkish: Şark İslahat Encümeni) who prepared the Report for Reform in the East (Turkish: Şark İslahat Raporu) which recommended to resettlement of the Kurds and the prohibition of non-Turkish languages.

[7] The preamble of the code written by Mahmut Esat is considered to reflect the philosophy of Turkish Revolution.

[12][13] Parallel to being a Minister of Justice he was teaching at the Kemalist lesson History of the Revolutions at the Ankara University since 1925.

He authored the books Lotus Davasında Türkiye-Fransa Müdafaaları (1927), Türk İhtilalinde Vatan Müdafaası (1934), Türk Köylü ve İşçilerinin Hakları (1939), Devletlerarası Hak (1940), Atatürk İhtilali (1940) and Aksak Timur’un Devlet Politikası (1943).