Legalizations of Certificates
The legalization of certificates is a validation procedure for any document issued in Brazil to be presented abroad. It is a mandatory procedure for these to be legally valid in other countries. There are international agreements and conventions between countries that, according to their convenience, sign or not on certain matters and in this specific one, on the validity of documents issued in one country and their legality in another, Brazil has not signed, the agreement of The Hague, 1961. ( see new news on the topic below - July 2015 ).
Some countries, such as Argentina and the USA, signed this agreement, therefore, for the descendants of Italians born in these countries who want to apply for the Italian citizenship directly in Italy, this step is not necessary. Only the proper authentications, handouts and translations are sufficient.
We guide the appointment with the consulate. This procedure undergoes constant changes in consulates, and is the great villain of the delay of processes due to high demand.
Today it is done through appointments directly on the consulates website, where you must have a registration.
News on the Hague Agreement.
'Apostille Convention' was signed by Brazil in 1961 and did not take effect for 53 years because it had not yet been ratified by Congress.
For an international agreement to be valid, in fact, in Brazil it needs to be endorsed by the National Congress. The so-called 'Apostille Convention' was signed in The Hague in 1961. Until today, however, it had not been appreciated by Brazilian parliamentarians. Last week, Senator Antonio Anastasia (PSDB/MG) was appointed rapporteur for the matter, after 53 years.
The opinion of the Minas Gerais senator was read and approved this Thursday (02/07) by the Committee on Foreign Relations and National Defense and went straight to the Plenary. This afternoon, the Senate approved the draft Legislative Decree No. 208 and, finally, definitively endorsed the text of the Convention on the Elimination of the Requirement for Legalization of Foreign Public Documents, celebrated in The Hague, on October 5, 1961. direct to enactment.
“This is an extremely positive convention for the purposes of simplicity and de-bureaucratization. With this approval, we take another important step towards streamlining and facilitating the acceptance of public documents. Brazil's accession, therefore, is convenient and timely for national interests. I am happy with the approval after so many years because it will mainly benefit our students who go abroad and, at the same time, foreigners who come to study here in Brazil. I only regret that it took us so many years to adhere to this very positive convention”.
The Apostille Convention is one of the plurilateral agreements created at the Hague Conference on Private International Law. Brazil's adherence to this instrument will now generate a great simplification of the process of legalizing Brazilian documents abroad and foreign documents in Brazil, providing a reduction in processing time and costs for interested citizens and companies.
Today, Brazilian documents to be used abroad are subject to a process of “chain legalization”, in which they are legalized, in several stages, by different governmental and parastatal instances, with the last national stage being the responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A large and time-consuming bureaucracy. On the other hand, foreign documents that must be valid in Brazil must be legalized at the Consulate or Consular Sector of the Embassy in whose jurisdiction they were issued.
With the new rule, national documents destined to be sent abroad, when they receive an Apostille issued by a competent authority in Brazil, will now have immediate validity in all other States Parties to the Convention. Today there are 105 countries. At the same time, foreign documents containing an Apostille issued by one of these States Parties will be accepted in Brazil.
In addition, digital systems of Electronic Apostille (“e-Apostille”), already developed by several countries, will be able to provide even more speed and security to legalizations.
Today, the well-known annual report of the International Finance Corporation / World Bank (“Investing Across Borders”) considers the ability to issue Apostilles as one of the criteria for measuring the competitiveness of the evaluated countries. Adherence to the agreement, therefore, may now also have positive economic effects for Brazil.