Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The State Services Agency under the Ministry of Justice has developed a draft resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers "On improving the procedure for affixing an apostille to official documents."

For the first time in the history of our country, based on the experience of the leading countries of the world, it is planned to transfer the process of affixing an apostille to an electronic form.

Apostille is a special stamp affixed for use abroad on an official document in accordance with the Convention, certifying the authenticity of the signature, the quality in which the person who signed the document acted, and the authenticity of the seal or stamp imprint that affixed the document.

According to the existing procedure, the apostille affixing is carried out by the Supreme Court, territorial departments of the Ministry of Justice, the General Prosecutor’s Office, the Inspectorate for Quality Control of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within 5 to 20 working days in paper form.

Considering that in our country, on average, more than 70,000 apostilles in paper form are affixed to official documents annually, of course, it takes considerable time to send documents abroad in paper form for their further use.

In accordance with the project, it is proposed to affix an apostille through a specialized electronic application (E-App) in the form of a secure electronic document.

It is assumed that the applicant, when contacting the CSU, will have to provide an official document subject to apostille. The CSU, having scanned the documents, must send them to the authorized body (one of five) through the information system.

The authorized body, within 1 working day after the receipt of the documents, must affix an electronic apostille through the E-App, also including information about the document in the E-register application, through which you can verify the authenticity of the document from anywhere in the world, and send the result to the applicant.

As a result, the terms for the provision of the service will be reduced from 5-20 working days to 1 working day, the transport costs of applicants to visit the capital to receive the service, the storage and sending of documents will also be simplified, and thanks to this, our state will become one of the most progressive countries in this area.

The introduction of the practice of affixing an electronic apostille in accordance with the Hague Convention, to which 140 countries are parties, began in 2006. Currently, 41 countries have introduced the ability to check apostilled documents online, 19 - affixing electronic apostilles through the E-App.