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Guyana moves to reduce red tape to legalizing foreign public documents
Government has started moves to reduce the hassle in legalizing foreign public documents
Government has announced plans to make it easier for documents notarized in other countries to be recognized via what is known as an electronic record.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Tuesday, Cabinet in a meeting held on August 16, last, approved in principle, subject to the National Assembly’s approval, Guyana’s accession to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents (Apostille Convention).
The accession will see a designated competent authority and the use of an electronic register to keep records of apostilles.
It may make work easier for foreigners who have to notarize documents which can be an expensive and time-consuming process.
According to the Ministry, the Apostille Convention is one of the most widely ratified Conventions under the Hague Conference on Private International Law. It is the aim to facilitate the worldwide circulation of public documents.
The Convention is “finding new life in an age of unprecedented global interconnectivity, in which international trade and investment, as well as the cross-border movement of people, find support in the mutual recognition given by states to these documents.”
The Ministry explained: “The aim of the Convention is to abolish the often time-consuming and costly paperwork surrounding the legalisation of foreign public documents, and to replace it with a simple single procedure. The Convention does not do away with legalisation; but instead establishes certain formalities in international legal transactions, without the loss of legal certainty, by reducing the legalisation process to a single action: the application of an apostille (a kind of certificate).”
A document bearing an apostille does not require any further legalisation by the embassy or consulate of the country in which it is to be used.
“The Apostille Certificate will be administered by a designated Central Authority and each designated Authority is required to keep a Register in which it records the Apostilles it has issued.
“Persons or authorities wishing to verify an Apostille can contact the Central Authority and have them check the Register to verify whether the particulars in the certificate correspond with those in the register or card index.”
The Ministry said that this will remedy the common practice of having public documents, such as birth, marriage and death certificates; extracts from commercial registers and other registers; court rulings; notarial acts etc. from having to be twice certified by the Foreign Ministry of Guyana, and then by the authorities of the country where the document will be used.
“Presently, there are 112 Contracting Parties to the Apostille Convention thereby allowing for the immediate use of documents which have the Apostille certificate in those countries.”
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