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Notary Public Information |
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A notary public is an officer who can administer oaths and statutory declarations, witness and authenticate documents and perform certain other acts varying from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Generally speaking, a notary public in the United States of America has powers that are far more limited than the role of a civil law notary in the rest of the world, with the exception of Louisiana. For the purposes of authentication, most countries require commercial or personal documents which originate from or are signed in another country to be notarized before they can be used or officially recorded or before they can have any legal effect.
In some countries and states, notaries are required to undergo specific training in the performance of their duties. Many must also first serve as an apprentice before being commissioned or licensed to practice their profession. Even licensed lawyers must go through additional training and apprenticeship, in some countries, before being allowed to practice the profession of a notary. Unlike most countries, the majority of those commissioned as a notary public in the United States of America are not licensed attorneys-at-law admitted to the bar. (Although some countries consider the profession of a civil law notary, itself, to be the practice of law. Many even have institutes of higher education issuing degrees in the field. In the United Kingdom, for example, a notary public can perform any task a solicitor or other lawyer can perform, in addition to their notary public duties, with the sole exception of representing others before the courts, unless they are also licensed as a barrister.
Common Law Jurisdictions
The duties and functions of notaries public are described in Brooke's Notary on page 19 in these terms:
Generally speaking, a notary public [...] may be described as an officer of the law [...] whose public office and duty it is to draw, attest or certify under his official seal deeds and other documents, including wills or other testamentary documents, conveyances of real and personal property and powers of attorney; to authenticate such documents under his signature and official seal in such a manner as to render them acceptable, as proof of the matters attested by him, to the judicial or other public authorities in the country where they are to be used, whether by means of issuing a notarial certificate as to the due execution of such documents or by drawing them in the form of public instruments; to keep a protocol containing originals of all instruments which he makes in the public form and to issue authentic copies of such instruments; to administer oaths and declarations for use in proceedings [...] to note or certify transactions relating to negotiable instruments, and to draw up protests or other formal papers relating to occurrences on the voyages of ships and their navigation as well as the carriage of cargo in ships." [Footnotes omitted.]
A notary, in almost all common law jurisdictions, is a qualified, experienced practitioner trained in the drafting and execution of legal documents. (A notable exception being 48 of the 50 U.S. States and some parts of Canada.) Traditionally, notaries recorded matters of judicial importance as well as private transactions or events where an officially authenticated record or a document drawn up with professional skill or knowledge was required. Specifically, the functions of notaries include the preparation of certain types of documents (including international contracts, deeds, wills and powers of attorney) and certification of their due execution, administering of oaths, witnessing affidavits and statutory declarations, certification of copy documents, noting and protesting of bills of exchange and the preparation of ships' protests.
Significant weight attaches to documents certified by notaries. Documents certified by notaries are sealed with the notary public's seal or stamp and are recorded by the notary in a register (also called a "protocol") maintained and permanently kept by him or her. These are known as "notarial acts". In countries subscribing to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalization for Foreign Public Documents only one further act of certification is required, known as an apostille) and is issued by a government department (usually the Foreign Affairs Department or similar). For other countries an "authentication" or "legalization" must be issued by the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the country from which the document is being sent or the Embassy, Consulate-General or High Commission of the country to which it is being sent.
Civil Law Jurisdictions
The role undertaken by a notary public in civil law countries is much greater than in common law countries. Notaries in the former countries frequently undertake work done in common law countries by the Titles Office and other Government agencies. The qualifications imposed by some countries is much greater. In Greece, for example, a practitioner must choose to be either a solicitor or a notary.
This should be contrasted with the Latin American notario who may be similar to an attorney at law or lawyer. A French notaire, a German and an Italian Notaio register wills and other documents, and authenticates transactions of Real Estate.
In the few United States jurisdictions where trained notaries are allowed (such as Puerto Rico), the practice of these jurists is limited to non-judicial legal advice, property conveyencing and legal drafting. See civil law notary.
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