Pakistan’s accession to Apostille Convention to ease significant burden on citizens: PM

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday that Pakistan's accession to Apostille Convention will facilitate and ease a significant burden on its citizens traveling and living abroad.

In a tweet today, the PM said that creating smooth processes for the citizens is a priority for the government.

"Now Pakistani notarized documents will be accepted in 100+ countries," he said.

He further said that citizens will be able to notarize their important legal documents such as marriage certificates, degrees and more via Ministry of Foreign Affairs-designated officials in Pakistan which will be internationally accepted without the need for any further verification.

On Thursday, the instrument of accession to the Apostille Convention, drafted by the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) at the request of the PM, was approved by President Arif Alvi.

Pakistan’s membership with the Apostille Convention would mean that documents originating from the country that are attested according to the requirements of the treaty will be accepted in the 122 countries that are its current members.

Similarly, the documents originating from other member countries would be acceptable in Pakistan.

Pakistan accedes to Apostille Convention on legalisation of public documents

If duly attested as per the Apostille Convention guidelines by the country of origin, these documents will be accepted in Pakistan without any further authentication requirements. The existing process of attestation and legalisation is confusing, time-consuming, cumbersome, and costly for most people and becoming a formal member of the Apostille Convention will facilitate millions of overseas Pakistanis.

The “Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents” (HCCH 1961 Apostille Convention) signed on October 5, 1961, facilitates the use of public documents abroad.

The process aims to abolish the traditional requirement of legalization of documents, replacing the often lengthy and costly legalisation process with the issuance of a single Apostille certificate by a Competent Authority in the place where the document originated.

The electronic Apostille Programme (e-APP) was launched in 2006 to support the electronic issuance and verification of Apostilles around the world.

The Convention has over 120 contracting parties and has become one of the most widely applied multilateral treaties in the area of legal cooperation, with several million Apostilles issued each year.