Legal Research

International Authentication

By John Gregory

As a general rule, do public documents ( and notarized documents in particular ) emanating from Canada for production in the United States and vice versa require any authentication before they may be admitted in evidence or used for any official purpose or recorded in any way in the destination jurisdiction? Are there specific exceptions with special authentication requirements?

I suppose one would have to turn to US law for an answer about US-bound documents, but does anyone have a rough-and-ready practical notion?

I am aware of section 45 of the Evidence Act of Ontario that provides for the admission in evidence of public documents supported by oath, affirmation etc made before a list of public officials, including notaries. I presume without yet looking that most or all of the common law jurisdictions in Canada will have something similar.

What of documents supported by oaths etc made before other types of official who are allowed by local law to hear them but who are not on our list? For example, some US states allow certain military personnel to hear oaths of people in the armed forces. Would we recognize such an oath here?

Does the answer depend on whether one is talking about giving legal effect to a document or about admitting it in a court proceeding?

I expect that electronic notarization would raise other issues that can probably be ignored for the purpose of this more traditional question (though feel free to explore them if you wish!)

Is there a good source of practical advice about such matters?

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on September 28, 2010 (boomark / email).