Certification of documents

(1) Every authority is entitled to certify copies of instruments that it has itself issued. Beyond this, the authorities designated by the Federal Government by statutory instrument within the meaning of section 1(1), no. 1, and the authorities competent under Land law, are entitled to certify copies where the original was issued by an authority, or the copy is needed for presentation to an authority, unless the issuing of certified copies from official registers and archives is reserved exclusively to other authorities by legal provision; the statutory instrument does not require the consent of the Bundesrat.
(2) Copies may not be certified where circumstances justify the assumption that the original content of the document whose copy is to be certified has been altered, in particular where that document contains gaps, deletions, insertions, alterations, illegible words, figures or signs, traces of the removal of words, figures or signs, or where the coherence of a document consisting of several sheets has been undone.
(3) A copy is certified by a certification note placed beneath the copy. The note must contain 1. the exact designation of the document whose copy is being certified; 2. the finding that the certified copy corresponds with the document presented; 3. the indication that the certified copy is issued only for presentation to the authority named, where the original was not issued by an authority; 4. the place and day of certification, the signature of the official competent for the certification, and the official seal.
(4) Subsections (1) to (3) apply correspondingly to the certification of 1. photocopies, photostats and similar reproductions produced by technical processes; 2. negatives of documents produced photo-technically that are kept by an authority; 3. printouts of electronic documents; 4. electronic documents a) that were produced to depict a document, b) that have received a different technical format from the source document, combined with a qualified electronic signature or a qualified electronic seal of an authority.
(5) The certification note must, in addition to the particulars under subsection (3), second sentence, in the certification of 1. the printout of an electronic document bearing a qualified electronic signature or a qualified electronic seal of an authority, contain the findings a) as to whom the signature verification identifies as the holder of the signature, or which authority the signature verification identifies as the holder of the seal, b) as to what point in time the signature verification identifies for the application of the signature or the seal, and c) which certificates, with which data, underlay this signature or seal; 2. an electronic document, contain the name of the official competent for the certification and the designation of the authority carrying out the certification; the signature of the official competent for the certification and the official seal under subsection (3), second sentence, no. 4 are replaced by a permanently verifiable qualified electronic signature or by a permanently verifiable qualified electronic seal of the authority. Where an electronic document that has received a different technical format from the source document bearing a qualified electronic signature or a qualified electronic seal of an authority is certified under the first sentence, no. 2, the certification note must additionally contain the findings under the first sentence, no. 1 for the source document.
(6) The documents produced under subsection (4), where certified, are treated the same as certified copies.
(7) Every authority should, on demand, produce and certify, in respect of instruments that it has itself issued, an electronic document under subsection (4), no. 4, letter a), or an electronic copy.