Nearly every person living in the modern world, which many people rightly refer to as the Global Village, believes that every part of the globe is now within their grasp – a step away, so to speak. Moving to any part of the world is no longer just a pipe dream for almost any young (or young at heart) person whose curiosity and enthusiasm have not been stifled by strict social norms and routine daily life, thanks to internet communication and breakneck speed travel.
The dry and frequently discouraging administration is without a doubt the first obstacle that those who want to experience living in a different, more or less remote region of the earth face. The Apostille seal is one of the tools that helps to simplify and finally achieve complicated international administrative communication.
As a result, the Apostille is your ticket to the global stage, which you must have in mind and secure if you decide to relocate, be it for personal or professional reasons.
Apostille, also known as the Hague Apostille, is a kind of certification that verifies the legitimacy of signatures and seals on papers intended for use in one of the 117 member nations of the 1961 Hague Convention, thereby reflecting your probable destination of choice. The Apostille seal or certificate secures the credibility of the documents you bring with you to unfamiliar surroundings, ensuring that your previous work and endeavors are not in vain. It ensures that your diploma, birth certificate copies, driver’s license, proof of marital status, or any other document is legal and acceptable under another nation’s laws. It is not used on diplomatic or consular documents, nor on documents dealing with trade or customs.
How can I get an Apostille seal?
Before submitting your document for translation to a translation agency or a sworn court interpreter, you should determine whether it needs to be certified with an Apostille, i.e., whether the nation you intend to visit is one of the hundreds of the Hague Convention signatory countries. If so, you must usually first certify the original document at the relevant local court or the court that issued the document. Therefore, the Apostille seal is affixed to either the original document or a certified copy, never on a plain copy. If a certified translation of the document is required, you take it to a court interpreter who translates both the document and the Apostille seal. In some situations, the Apostille seal, the translation, and the original document (or certified copy) must all be authenticated. The Apostille on the translation is affixed exclusively by the court in which the given court interpreter is registered. As a result, you can only receive an Apostille seal from the competent court (or the Office for International Legal Assistance) where the document was issued.
Italy and Belgium are the only countries immune from the requirements. If you intend to travel to Italy or Belgium, the Apostille will NOT be attached to the original document. Instead, the paper must be translated first (the interpreter must be registered in Belgrade). Following the court interpreter’s certification, the document bound to its translation is taken to the court as is, where the Apostille seal is placed, after which it is not translated.
The Apostille certificate must be in the internationally prescribed format and affixed to the document or its attachment. It can be written in the official language of the issuing country, but the title “Apostille (Convention de La Haye du 5 octobre 1961)” must be in the original French language to be recognized and accepted by the authorities of the Hague Convention member states.
What should you do if you are not visiting a Hague Convention-signatory country?
If you are traveling to a country that is not a signatory to the Hague Convention (for example, the UAE), the procedure is slightly different. In that scenario, an Apostille seal is not required. To acquire full international authentication at the Office for International Legal Assistance, you must go to the basic court in the city where the relevant document was issued (according to the local jurisdiction). The validated document is subsequently delivered to a translation agency or an individual translator/court interpreter before being returned to the basic court for authentication of the translation’s legitimacy. Next, the documents must be finalized by visiting the Ministry of Justice and then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (and, of course, paying the associated fees, which are not trivial!).
Conclusion, or something like it
Finally, the 1961 Hague Convention involved a significant number of countries with the goal of simplifying, or rather eradicating, the legalization of documents required for global recognition. Numerous issues linked to the previously complex legalization of documents in international legal transactions have thus been resolved.
It is worth repeating that in Serbia, the Apostille certificate is issued by the Basic Court for public documents composed, issued, or verified by authorities under its jurisdiction.
We hope that following the outlined processes will make exploring any location on earth much more accessible and easy for you, allowing you to truly become a cosmopolitan or global citizen, not just in theory but in practice.
