The Ministry of Foreign Affairs MoFA in Islamabad and its offices in Karachi and Lahore have started a new service to help with apostille attestation. This service in partnership with various courier companies aims to make the document attestation process easier for citizens.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will attest the applicant’s documents, which approved courier services will pick up under the new arrangement. TCS, M&P, Gerry’s, Leopard, and ECS are approved courier services based in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi.
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Except for Power of Attorney paperwork, these courier services are allowed to accept any document for apostille attestation, according to a statement from the Foreign Office.
This happens subsequent to Pakistan’s 2023 accession to the Hague Convention on the Apostille Convention, which abolishes the need for the legalization of foreign public documents. According to the Foreign Office, this agreement reduces the formalities involved in public document authentication to just one: the granting of an “Apostille,” or authentication certificate, by the authorized authority of the nation where the document was issued.
The FO statement stated that the convention reduces the public document verification procedure to a single formality, the issuing of an authentication certificate known as an “Apostille” by the appropriate authority of the nation where the document was issued. Therefore, there is no need for additional attestation when presenting foreign public papers verified by an apostille to the relevant authorities.
The convention aims to do away with the customary necessity of legalization, which frequently entails an expensive and time-consuming procedure. Rather, enough authentication for the document’s global use is provided by the Apostille certificate, which was granted by a capable authority at the document’s original location.
For Pakistani nationals who need to authenticate documents for use overseas, the new apostille attestation service offered by MoFA is anticipated to greatly simplify the procedure, guaranteeing a speedier, more effective, and economical solution.