Guatemala benefits from the Apostille
One of the most tedious (and common) obligations in the traffic of legal services is the compliance with the rules regarding the legalization of documents from abroad (foreign states). Precisely, The Hague Convention, that abolishes the requirement of legalization for foreign public documents, is designed to simplify this process and expedite the flow of documents from abroad.
On September 17 of this year, Guatemala was annexed as part of the aforementioned convention (also known as the Apostille Convention). The apostille is a document that certifies the origin of a public document and the authenticity of the signature of the local authority of the country in which it has been issued. The expediency is that the chain of legalization (where the signature of the authority that issued the document was first authenticated in the respective Ministry, so that the signature of the minister could be, then, authenticated by the consul of the embassy of the country where the document was being sent) is now abolished.
Now, there is a single authority in charge of legalizing the document, so that it can immediately be sent to the recipient country and have its desired effects there immediately. In the case of Guatemala, the competent authority shall be the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The apostille only certifies the origin of the document, the authenticity of the signature, the authenticity of the seal, and the ability to apostille, but does not validate the contents of the document.
The apostille doesn’t have any cost. It is expected that this implementation will benefit thousands of notaries and consequently their clients, in one of the most requested procedures on a day by day basis.
The adherence of Guatemala to this treaty comes to complement the incorporation that already existed from the rest of the countries in the region, and comes back more competitive in the Central American block at the moment of offering different legal services where the legalization topic would be completely standardized. Even the next step as a region is the acceptance of the electronic apostille or to remove completely the requirements of legalization for certain formalities, as it´s already being done in other jurisdictions.
Jose Rosales Cano
Associate
García & Bodán
Guatemala