The circulation of public documents within the EU simplifies

As of 16 February 2019, Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 of the European parliament and of the Council on promoting the free movement of citizens by simplifying the requirements for presenting certain public documents in the European Union and amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012 (hereinafter “Regulation on public documents”) has become effective. The purpose of the Regulation on public documents is to simplify circulation of certain public documents within the EU Member States.

The substance of the Regulation on public documents is to eliminate the requirement of the apostille and official translation of certain public documents, to which the public authority will attach, upon a request, a multilingual standard form.

This Regulation applies to public documents issued by the authorities of the EU Member State in accordance with its national law, which will be presented to the authorities of another EU Member State and the primary purpose of which is to establish one or more of the following facts:

1. facts relating to status of a natural persons: birth; a person being alive; death; name; domicile and/or residence; nationality;

2. facts relating to family relations: marriage including capacity to marry and marital status; divorce, legal separation or marriage annulment; registered partnership, including capacity to enter into a registered partnership and registered partnership status; dissolution of a registered partnership, legal separation or annulment of a registered partnership; parenthood; adoption;

3. absence of a criminal record, provided that public documents concerning this fact are issued for a citizen of the Union by the authorities of that citizen's Member State of nationality.

Examples:

Original of transcript of criminal record from the German criminal register (or criminal register of any other EU Member State of which is a person citizen), which will be submitted to a public authority in the Slovak republic (or in any other EU Member State):

A/ in case of absence of criminal record:

- a person does not need to apostille transcript of criminal record (Art. 1 para. 1, lit. a) and Art. 2 para. 1, lit. m) of the Regulation);

- upon request of the person entitled to the receive transcript of criminal records, public authority shall issue transcript of criminal records accompanied by a multilingual standard form, with parts in Slovak and German language. Therefore, official translation should not be required. (Art. 7 of the Regulation).

B/ if the person has a criminal record:

- a person needs to apostille transcript of a criminal record (this case is not in the scope of the Regulation – Art. 2, para. 1, lit. m));

- in this case, transcript of records needs official translation to Slovak language.

Original birth certificate issued by Italian public authority (or by public authority in any other EU Member State), which will be submitted to public authority in the Slovak republic (or to public authority in any other EU Member State):

- birth certificate does not need to be apostilled (Art. 1, para. 1, lit. a) and Art. 2 para. 1, lit. a) of the Regulation);

- upon the request of the person entitled to receive the birth certificate, a public authority shall issue birth certificate accompanied by a multilingual standard form, with parts in Slovak and Italian language. Therefore, official translation should not be required. (Art. 7 of the Regulation).