Legalization of Documents
| “We are completely satisfied with the services provided by the London-Moscow team of linguists and would like to acknowledge their expertise as they are well-versed in legal terminology.” |
| Ivan Marisin, Senior Partner, Clifford Chance |
In international law, legalization is the process of certifying a document so that it will be recognized by the legal system of a foreign country. The process is used routinely in international commerce.
Legalization for Russian documents is not required in the following countries (as of October 1, 2005):
|
|
|
Russia also recognizes documents issued in the countries listed above.
If you have Russian documents intended for use in these countries, or documents from these countries intended for use in Russia, no legalization is required.
In other cases, documents should be legalized to be recognized in other countries.
For legalization purposes, countries are divided into two groups: those which are signatories to the Hague Convention and those which are not.
Apostille
The Hague Convention abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents provides for the simplified certification of public (including notarized) documents to be used in countries that have joined the convention.
|
|
|
Under the Hague Convention, signatory countries have agreed to recognize public documents issued by other signatory countries if those public documents are authenticated by the attachment of an internationally recognized form of authentication known as an Apostille. The Apostille ensures that public documents issued in one signatory country will be recognized as valid in another signatory country.
For the purposes of the Convention, public documents include:
a) documents emanating from a court;
b) documents issued by an administrative authority (such as civil records);
c) documents executed before a notary.
These documents include
- birth, marriage and death certificate;
- extracts from commercial registers and other registers;
- patents;
- court rulings;
- notarial acts and notarial attestations of signatures;
- academic diplomas issued by public institutions.
In Russia, apostilles are usually affixed by officers of the Ministry of Justice, on the original documents or their duly notarized copies.
Consular Legalization
In countries which are not signatories to the Hague Convention and do not recognize the Apostille, a foreign public document must be legalized by a consular office in the country which issued the document.
The procedure is called consular legalization (also referred to as chain authentication). Consular legalization of official documents is a procedure of confirmation of the validity of originals of official documents or certification of authenticity of signatures of the officials, authorized to certify the signatures on documents, and also the validity of prints of stamps, seals by which the document is fastened.
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 documents are to be used.
In Russia, consular legalization is performed in three stages:
a) authentication of documents with the Russian Ministry of Justice;
b) authentication of documents with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
c) authentication of documents with the country’s consulate in the Russian Federation.
Countries which have opted to not participate in the Hague Convention are listed below:
|
|
|
If you need your Russian documents legalized, we are here to help. London-Moscow Translations provides legalization services to corporations, law firms, Russian citizens and foreign nationals on all documents that are intended for use in foreign countries.
Please email or call for a free quote on your assignment:
| Phone: |
+7 495 789 86 58 |
| Fax: |
+7 495 624 11 89 |
| Email Address: | office@londonmoscow.com |