In international law, documentlegalization is the process of authenticating or certifying a document so it can be accepted in another country.
In international law, documentlegalization is the process of authenticating or certifying a document so it can be accepted in another country.
Due to the lack of familiarity with foreign documents or the entities that issue them, many countries require that foreign documents be legalized to be accepted there. This legalization procedure generally consists of a chain of certifications, by one or more authorities of the country of origin of the document and of the destination country. The first authority certifies the issuer of the document, and each subsequent authority certifies the previous one, until the final certification is made by an authority of the destination country that can be recognized by the final user there. [1]
Public documents must be authenticated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or equivalent of the country of origin and then legalized by an embassy or consulate of the destination country located in the country of origin. [2] [3] [4] [5] For example, an Egyptian document to be used in the Netherlands must be authenticated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt and then legalized by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Egypt. [6]
Some cases may require more certifications. For example, to be accepted in Thailand, a document from the U.S. state of Maryland not issued by a government official must be certified by a notary public, who must then be certified by the clerk of the circuit court in the notary's county, who must then be certified by the state of Maryland, which must then be certified by the U.S. Department of State, which must finally be certified by the Embassy of Thailand in the United States. [7] [8] In some countries, an additional certification by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the destination country is also required. [1]
Not all countries require legalization of foreign documents. For example, Canada, Japan, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States generally accept documents from any country without any certification. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
Some countries have agreements eliminating the legalization requirement for certain documents issued by each other, such as between Argentina and Italy, [14] between Brazil and France, [15] between parties of the Convention on the Issue of Multilingual Extracts from Civil Status Records, [16] [17] and between parties of the Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations of the Commonwealth of Independent States. [18] [19] The European Union also has a regulation eliminating the legalization requirement for certain documents of its member states to be accepted by each other. [20]
The Apostille Convention is intended to simplify the legalization procedure by replacing it with a certification called an apostille, issued by an authority designated by the country of origin. If the convention applies between two countries, the apostille is sufficient for the document to be accepted in the destination country. [1]
Ideally the apostille would be the only certification needed, but in some cases additional certifications in the country of origin may be required before the apostille is issued. [1] For example, documents not issued by a government official may need to be certified by a notary; in some U.S. states, documents certified by a notary or city official must then be certified by the respective county or court; finally the apostille may be issued, certifying the previous official. [7] [21] In any case, after the apostille, no certification by the destination country is required.
The Apostille Convention requires that countries part of the convention direct their embassies and consulates to no longer perform legalizations of documents where the convention applies. [1] The removal of this service is intended to prevent excessive certifications potentially required by overzealous institutions, [22] but in cases where a consular certification alone would otherwise be sufficient to legalize a document and the apostille procedure requires more steps or higher fees, the convention may actually result in a more complex or more costly procedure to certify the document.
An affidavit is a written statement voluntarily made by an affiant or deponent under an oath or affirmation which is administered by a person who is authorized to do so by law. Such a statement is witnessed as to the authenticity of the affiant's signature by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public or commissioner of oaths. An affidavit is a type of verified statement or showing, or in other words, it contains a verification, which means that it is made under oath on penalty of perjury, and this serves as evidence for its veracity and is required in court proceedings.
A notary public of the common law is a public officer constituted by law to serve the public in non-contentious matters usually concerned with general financial transactions, estates, deeds, powers-of-attorney, and foreign and international business. A notary's main functions are to validate the signature of a person ; administer oaths and affirmations; take affidavits and statutory declarations, including from witnesses; authenticate the execution of certain classes of documents; take acknowledgments ; provide notice of foreign drafts; provide exemplifications and notarial copies; and, to perform certain other official acts depending on the jurisdiction. Such transactions are known as notarial acts, or more commonly, notarizations. The term notary public only refers to common-law notaries and should not be confused with civil-law notaries.
The Convention for the Unification of certain rules relating to international carriage by air, commonly known as the Warsaw Convention, is an international convention which regulates liability for international carriage of persons, luggage, or goods performed by aircraft for reward.
Civil-law notaries, or Latin notaries, are lawyers of noncontentious private civil law who draft, take, and record legal instruments for private parties, provide legal advice and give attendance in person, and are vested as public officers with the authentication power of the State. As opposed to most notaries public, their common-law counterparts, civil-law notaries are highly trained, licensed practitioners providing a full range of regulated legal services, and whereas they hold a public office, they nonetheless operate usually—but not always—in private practice and are paid on a fee-for-service basis. They often receive generally the same education as attorneys at civil law with further specialized education but without qualifications in advocacy, procedural law, or the law of evidence, somewhat comparable to solicitor training in certain common-law countries.
Hague Convention may refer to:
In the U.S. legal system, service of process is the procedure by which a party to a lawsuit gives an appropriate notice of initial legal action to another party, court, or administrative body in an effort to exercise jurisdiction over that person so as to force that person to respond to the proceeding before the court, body, or other tribunal.
The Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, also known as the Apostille Convention, is an international treaty drafted by the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH). The Apostille Convention is intended to simplify the procedure through which a document, issued in one of the contracting states, can be certified for legal purposes in the other contracting states of the Convention. A certification under the Convention is called an apostille or Hague apostille. An apostille is an international certification comparable to a notarisation, and may supplement a local notarisation of the document. If the Convention applies between two states, an apostille issued by the state of origin is sufficient to certify the document, and removes the need for further certification by the destination state.
A permanent account number (PAN) is a ten-character alphanumeric identifier Foundational ID, issued in the form of a laminated "PAN card", by the Indian Income Tax Department, to any person who applies for it or to whom the department allots the number without an application. It can also be obtained in the form of a PDF file known as e-PAN from the website of the Indian Income Tax Department.
The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) is an intergovernmental organisation in the area of private international law, that administers several international conventions, protocols and soft law instruments.
The Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters, more commonly called the Hague Service Convention, is a multilateral treaty that was adopted in The Hague, The Netherlands, on 15 November 1965 by member states of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. It came into existence to give litigants a reliable and efficient means of serving the documents on parties living, operating or based in another country. The provisions of the convention apply to service of process in civil and commercial matters but not criminal matters. Also, Article 1 states that the Convention shall not apply if the address of the person to be served with the document is not known.
An exemplified copy is an official attested copy or transcript of a public instrument, made under the seal and original pen-in-hand signature of a court or public functionary and in the name of the sovereign, for example, "The People of the State of Oklahoma". Exemplifications can only be attested and executed by either the authority holding the record or the issuing authority. Exemplified copies are also usually an extract or transcript made directly from the original. They can be contrasted with certified copies which are attested by a public authority who does not necessarily execute the copy; are signed and sealed by the certifier, not necessarily the issuing authority or recorder; and are a facsimile, made from the original or not, and vary as to faithfulness, for example, fair copy, imitative copy, and so forth.
A certified copy is a copy of a primary document that has on it an endorsement or certificate that it is a true copy of the primary document. It does not certify that the primary document is genuine, only that it is a true copy of the primary document.
A notary public in Virginia is authorized to acknowledge signatures, administer oaths, and certify copies On July 1, 2012, Virginia became the first state to authorize a signer to be in a remote location and have a document notarized electronically by an approved Virginia electronic notary using audio-visual conference technology by passing the bills SB 827 and HB 2318.
The China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) was established on June 24, 1996 by China's Ministry of Civil Affairs. The CCAA is responsible for the welfare of children in the care of Child Welfare Institutes (orphanages), domestic adoption, and international adoption.
The Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for Mexico's foreign affairs.
A certified translation is one which fulfills the requirements in the country in question, enabling it to be used in formal procedures, with the translator accepting responsibility for its accuracy. These requirements vary widely from country to country. While some countries allow only state-appointed translators to produce such translations, others will accept those carried out by any competent bilingual individual. Between these two extremes are countries where a certified translation can be carried out by any professional translator with the correct credentials.
A public instrument is any legal instrument recorded with and authenticated by a public office or employee. To carry weight, any such instrument, must be genuine and authentic. Public instruments consequently must bear the name, title, and seal of the official that issued them, and should be written in the presence of witnesses who attested to them.
An act is an instrument that records a fact or something that has been said, done, or agreed. Acts generally take the form of legal instruments of writing that have probative value and executory force. They are usually accepted as self-authenticating demonstrative evidence in court proceedings, though with the precarious status of notaries public and their acts under common law, this is not always so.
Ship registration is the process by which a ship is documented and given the nationality of the country to which the ship has been documented. The nationality allows a ship to travel internationally as it is proof of ownership of the vessel.
In the United States, a notary public is a person appointed by a state government, e.g., the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, or in some cases the state legislature, and whose primary role is to serve the public as an impartial witness when important documents are signed. Since the notary is a state officer, a notary's duties may vary widely from state to state and in most cases, a notary is barred from acting outside his or her home state unless they have a commission there as well.
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