Before starting the document legalisation process of your South African public documents, you’ll need to verify the appropriate process to follow by ascertaining that the destination country where your document will be used is have subscribed to the Hague Apostille Convention (Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Consular Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents). A South Africa public documents must be legalised or authenticated using the Apostille Certificate if the the destination country have subscribed to the Apostille Convention. List of Apostille Countries South Africa is a subscribing country to the Hague Apostille Convention Under this Convention, member countries (contracting states) have agreed to an truncated more efficient document legalisation and authentication process namely an Apostille Certificate by an South African designated (Competent) authority The Convention thus facilitates a more efficient verification process of public documents. Apostille certificates is thus required for all contracting states of the Hague Apostille Convention. When the destination country of your South African document is nopt a subsribing member to the Hague Apostille Convention, such document will have to be legalised using the longer chain document “authentication’ and verification process regulated by High Court Rule 63 of the Uniform Rules of Court as the verification of any signature on a document.