NEW APOSTILLE REGULATION: INDONESIA’S EFFORT TO PROMOTE EASE OF DOING BUSINESS

Enforceability

The MOLHR Regulation 6/2022 as the implementing regulation to enforce the Hague Convention will enter into force on 4 June 2022. Upon such enforcement, it is expected that the legalization for documents signed outside Indonesia will no longer be necessary. Under the Hague Convention, a competent authority appointed by a contracting state is responsible for issuing certificates (“Apostille”) which acts to certify the origin of public documents produced by that contracting states. Contracting states to the Hague Convention are obliged to accept Apostille as sufficient for the purposes of verifying the origin of a document.

The government of Republic of Indonesia has appointed the Ministry of Law and Human Rights (“MOLHR”) as the competent authority to issue the Apostille for documents signed in Indonesia to be used in other contracting states. According to the MOLHR Regulation 6/2022, the applicant of Apostille service shall submit an online application along with supporting documents (such as ID of the applicant) and the scan copy of document for which the Apostille is being requested. Having received such application, the MOLHR will conduct a verification of the application, and once verification is completed, the applicant will be requested to pay the official fees. Upon payment, the applicant will be notified electronically to collect an apostilled certificate and bring the document originally requested for apostilling.

For Singapore, which has also acceded to the Hague Convention, the competent authority to affix the Apostille is the Singapore Academy of Law (“SAL”). Thus, starting from 4 June 2022, documents signed in Singapore which are intended to be used in Indonesia will no longer need to be legalized by the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore, and can instead be used in Indonesia after the document has been certified by Apostille by SAL.

Implementation in Practice

While the MOLHR Regulation 4/2022 is clear that now Indonesia has fully acceded to the Hague Convention, we expect that there will be a gap between the written regulation and implementation in practice during the initial period. Some Indonesian notaries may be reluctant to accept the Apostille issued by a competent authority of other contracting states, and still require the normal process (i.e. notarization and legalization). However, once fully effected and accepted, the Apostille process will ease doing business in Indonesia.