Lately our office dealt with an application of a foreign citizen, an adult allegedly living in Brazil with his biological father, claiming to be an Israeli citizen and therefore requested us to petition for him an Israeli citizenship status, being an Israeli’s son.
They had a valid document according to Brazilian law, which we received for notarial translation (an original birth certificate).
On the certificate there was an apostille attached, according to Hague Convention rules of which Israel and Brazil were fellow members.
The apostille was carried out by the Convention’s rules in three languages: English, Portuguese and French.
Our office translated the birth certificate into Hebrew. However, the state’s representatives insisted in an incomprehensible manner to get also a translation of the apostille into Hebrew.
A proceeding on this matter was conducted before the family court, where they claimed that in question is a demand that wasn’t reasonable and not meeting the principles of Hague Convention, and we also brought many legal sources for our claims.
After discussions, the court approved our stand and ordered the state of Israel to accept the document the way it was submitted by us, without a translation.
