Apostil and legalization

In international law, legalization is the process of certifying a document so a foreign country's legal system will recognize it. The process is used routinely in international commerce and civil law. It is generally performed by validation of the signature on a document by an authority, which is higher in hierarchical terms. For example, a school diploma may need to be legalized by evaluation by the Ministry of Education, followed by legalization of the signature of the Ministry of Education by the Ministry of Foreign affairs. Once authenticated by the foreign ministry the documents then need to be reviewed and approved by the consular staff of the country, in which the transaction is to occur. Often certified translation is also required for full legalization.

The Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents has supplanted the default procedure by a system of apostil. It is available if both, the country of the document and the country for which the document is required, are party to the treaty. The apostil is a stamp on which standard validating information is supplied. It is available (dependent on the document) from a notary public or court.

The Apostil ensures that public documents issued in one signatory country will be recognized as valid in another signatory country.

The sole function of the Apostil is to certify the authenticity of the signature on the document; the capacity in which the person signing the document acted; and the identity of any stamp or seal affixed to the document.

There are currently over 60 member states of the Hague convention and in addition to those countries many other countries will also recognise an Apostil certificate.

The Convention applies only to public documents. These are documents emanating from an authority or official connected with a court or tribunal of the State (including documents issued by an administrative, constitutional or ecclesiastical court or tribunal, a public prosecutor, a clerk or a process-server); administrative documents; notarized acts and official certificates, which are placed on documents signed by persons in their private capacity, such as official certificates recording the registration of a document or the fact that it was in existence on a certain date and official and notary authentications of signatures. The main examples of public documents for which Apostil are issued in practice include birth , marriage and death certificates; extracts from commercial registers and other registers; patents; court rulings; notary acts and notary attestations of signatures; academic diplomas issued by public institutions.