The apostille counter at a valilik or kaymakamlık, the provincial or district governor’s office in Türkiye, sometimes reads the document, or the translation attached to it, and withholds the certificate because of what the text says: a term looks wrong, a sentence seems unclear, a date in the translation is queried. The Turkish Ministry of the Interior met exactly this behaviour and wrote a circular about it in 2009. This page sets out what that circular records, which checks remain legitimate at the desk, and what the circular leaves unsaid.
The complaint behind Circular 2009/31
Circular 2009/31, dated 17 March 2009, opens with its reason. The Ministry writes that it had learned that officials authorised to sign the apostille were intervening in the text and content of the documents on which they placed the certificate, and that this was slowing procedures down and causing disputes. The circular was written because of a practice, not in the abstract: the problem a holder meets at the counter today is the one the Ministry described then.
Who received it, and for what
The distribution list at the end sends the circular for action to the General Directorate of Security, the General Directorate of Population and Citizenship Affairs and all 81 provincial governor’s offices, and for information to the ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs. The provincial governor’s offices are the authorities that apostille administrative documents, so the instruction was addressed to the desks concerned. The text is published on the website of the Ministry of the Interior, and a copy is on the website of a district governor’s office.
Ten fields and a limit on the text
The circular lists the ten elements of the certificate: the country of issue, the name of the signatory, the capacity of the signatory, the authority whose seal the document bears, the place and the date of certification, the authority issuing the certificate, its number, its seal or stamp and the signature of the issuing official. It then states, relying on articles 3 and 5 of the Convention, that the apostille procedure does not extend to the text of the document. Article 5 names what the certificate attests: the signature, the capacity of the signatory and, where appropriate, the seal. The meaning of that limit is explained in the key terms section of this site; here it matters as the answer the Ministry gave to its own desks.
Checks that are not objections to content
Not every refusal is the intervention the circular describes. Some checks concern the form or the scope of the document and remain the desk’s task:
- A plain e-Devlet printout carrying only a barcode has no handwritten signature to attest; the Onikişubat District Governor’s Office writes that such a printout is considered once the issuing institution has certified it physically with an official’s name, title, signature and seal.
- The last paragraph of article 1 of the Convention excludes documents of diplomatic or consular agents and administrative documents dealing directly with commercial or customs operations; recognising them means looking at what kind of document is on the counter.
- The original of a judicial document belongs to the judicial commission at a high criminal court seat under the Ministry of Justice circular 68/1, not to the governor’s office.
A refusal based on the wording of a sentence, the choice of a term or the quality of a translation belongs to none of these checks.
When the objection targets the translation
On a notarised translation the certificate rests on the notary. The Onikişubat District Governor’s Office writes that in a translation certified by a notary the element the apostille is based on is the notary’s certifying signature and capacity, and that the apostille confirms the notarial certification rather than the accuracy of the translation. A desk objecting to a term in the translation is therefore reading the part of the file that the circular places outside the certificate. A doubt about a term is a matter for the translator, the notary and the receiving institution, and is best raised before the file reaches the counter. A translation office corrects its own text where there is an error; it does not argue the case at the counter and gives no legal opinion on the refusal.
What the circular does not settle
The circular is silent on who may apply, on powers of attorney, on language, on translation, on time limits and on fees, and it provides no complaint or review procedure. No written route for challenging a refusal at an apostille desk, and no deadline for a decision, was found in this site’s survey. What the holder can point to is the circular itself, addressed by the Ministry to every provincial governor’s office for action, and the office can be asked to state its reason in writing.