Why Apostelling a South African Home Affairs document is recommended.

Apostelling a document, in this case an unabridged birth or marriage certificate, ensures that the document undergoes an extra layer or scrutiny before it is double embossed with a red seal depicting the National Coat of Arms which forms part of the Great Seal of the Realm and two strips of green notary ribbon which represent the official binding used by South African government Department of Home Affairs, The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), as well as the South African High Court. Apostilled documents prove to foreign authorities that the document, the signature on it, and the stamp are authentic and issued by a recognised South African Government department.

Apostelling a document servers a number of purposes including

• securing multiple page documents
• ensuring the authenticity of a set of documents
• highlighting any attempted tampering
• providing the legal authenticity recognised by governments internationally in line with the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention

Multiple page documents or certificates  are physically bound together with the strips of binding ribbon and the dry embossed stamps which contains no wax, featuring instead a shiny, saw-toothed edged, circular paper seal bearing the South African Coat of Arms. This ensures that pages are held together and ensures that the document can not be tampered without breaking the seals.

Apostilling a Home Affairs document lends it extra credibility as it is much easier legally recognized as valid in another country.