Requirements of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the certified translation

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Until recently, the Israeli notarial law allowed the notary to certify the translation in two ways:

  1. According to Art. 15 of the 1976 Notaries Act, a notary certifying the translation must have command of both the language of the translated document and the language into which the document is translated.
  2. But the question arose: what if the notary does not know the language in which the original document has been drawn up? In this case there was a second possibility: according to Art. 14a of 1977 Notary Regulations (Takanot) in, the notary had the right not to do the translation of the document personally or even to check it, but simply to certify the translator's declaration, warning him of criminal liability for false representation. This item allowed the notary, who did not even know the language in which the document had been drawn up, to certify the declarations of translators who made the translations. 
  • Ariel Roman Katsman’s unique knowledge of departmental instructions and his many years’ experience as Attorney and Notary with the Visa Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Israel, allow us to clearly understand which certifications are accepted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs when considering applications for residence status in Israel and which are not recognized.

  • A striking example of this is the recently introduced requirements of the Visa Service, according to which a notary is required to know the language of the document he translates. The translator's declarations certified by the notary, in which the translator confirms the authenticity of the translation made by him, are no longer accepted. At present the Ministry of Internal Affairs demands that the notary verifies and certifies the translation personally (and not the translator's declaration). The introduction of these requirements led to the fact that the Visa Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Israel ceased to accept certifications of translators' declarations, and clients were forced to remake certifications of translations using the services of other notaries.