Getting married soon! Need help clearing up confusion about over-seas marriages and applying for Resident Permit

[RazaAhmed]

Hey guys, I'm in a bit of a pickle and I can't seem to figure out exactly what to do regarding our process.

I am in need of information regarding the marriage of me and my soon-to-be wife. I am a Pakistani Citizen and she is a Finnish citizen respectively. Because there is no Finnish Embassy in Pakistan, things are even more confusing...

Me and my fiancee were confused about some steps about legalising our marriage as per the directions on magri.fi (https://migri.fi/en/spouse-is-a-finnish-citizen) and I needed some clarifications on how to proceed.

1) What steps will ensure the marriage certificate be legalized in Pakistan so that it's accepted in Finland upon her return back home. (Eg: Ministry of Foreign Affairs stamp? Are other stamps required?)

2)What documents does she need to submit in Finland before-hand in order to get married abroad in Pakistan?(Impediments of marriage at a the Local Registration Office?)

3)What documents she should bring with her to legalize the marriage here (Divorce certificate, birth certificate, anything else?)

4)What further steps we have to make sure to complete before her return to Finland in order for us to apply for my residence permit to Finland?

We're hoping not to miss any steps/documents/legal matters as she will only be here for 15 days and we'd like to know exactly how to proceed.

Also, something that’s been bothering me a lot is that I keep dreading that we’re forgetting something out of our knowledge. I would appreciate any and all help you guys could provide in clearing up the confusion. 

[sijazme]

Hey guys, I'm in a bit of a pickle and I can't seem to figure out exactly what to do regarding our process.

I would advise getting married in Finland on a tourist visa.

If you are married in Pakistan, NADRA and Ministry of Foreign Affair stamps are required on the marriage document. You can then probably mail these to your nearest Finnish embassy (UAE) for legalization but the Finnish embassy in UAE might need stamps of UAE foreign ministry as well.

Message me in private for more info.

[RazaAhmed]

Thanks for getting back mate!

The problem is that I don't think it would be possible to marry in Finland as of now since the plans have already carried onwards.

As for getting the stamps that you mentioned, I think those will be doable without much problem, the UAE thing is a bit of a bummer though.


Emailing you now mate

[RazaAhmed]

As of now though, I don't think going to Finland is in the options since we already planned the marriage out here in Pakistan... Wouldn't a NADRA stamp as well as a Forigen Ministery stamp + a Swedish stamp be enough to make it a legalized marriage certiticate?

I'm not sure who we could possibly get stamps done in UAE from so many places...

[necadam]

but the Finnish embassy in UAE might need stamps of UAE foreign ministry as well.

That's very unlikely. What makes you think that? According to Finnish Foreign Ministry (and common sense as well), the document has to be legalized by the country that issued it, i.e. it has nothing to do with the country in which the embassy is located: https://finlandabroad.fi/web/pak/asiaki ... listaminen

Jos asiakirja on myönnetty maassa, joka ei kuulu Haagin Apostille-sopimuksen piiriin, laillistus tapahtuu näin:
1 Asiakirjan myöntäneen maan ulkoministeriö laillistaa sen oikean viranomaisen antamaksi.
2 Maassa toimivaltainen Suomen edustusto laillistaa asiakirjan liittämällä siihen todistuksen kyseisen maan ulkoministeriön virkamiehen oikeudesta antaa tällaisia todistuksia.


Pakistanilaisten asiakirjojen laillistaminen Suomen viranomaisia varten

Pakistanilaiset asiakirjat tulee laillistaa Pakistanin ulkoministeriössä. Sen jälkeen asiakirjat voidaan toimittaa suoraan Suomen toimivaltaiselle viranomaiselle, joka päättää hyväksyykö se asiakirjan.

So basically, you need the marriage certificate to be legalized by Pakistani Foreign Ministry, officially translated to Finnish, Swedish or English (if necessary) and then give it directly to maistraatti.

[RazaAhmed]

Thank you for your reply.

I phoned up the Local Register Office in Helsinki yesterday to get more clarification on legalizing the marriage certificate so that it could be registered within Finland after our marriage. I'm not sure if I even phoned the correct department in this matter, but they basically told me that , It's "almost impossible" to get a marriage certificate to be legalised to be used within Finland if it was issued in Pakistan. It kind of dumfounded me, like is it illegal for Finnish citizens to get married within Pakistan now??

Asking some very helpful people online and searching online, I did find this one source too

http://pakistanembassy.se/attestation/

So I have heard that it IS possible to legalize marriage documents that were issued within Pakistan for a Finnish Citizen (although very complicated), but I'm still not 100% sure we should carry out our plans until I can be at least confident in the procedure.
The major source of worry I have at the moment is what to believe exactly. Perhaps the Local Register Office got something "wrong" because obviously they don't know the entire situation?

[necadam]

but they basically told me that , It's "almost impossible" to get a marriage certificate to be legalised to be used within Finland if it was issued in Pakistan. It kind of dumfounded me, like is it illegal for Finnish citizens to get married within Pakistan now??

That's ridiculous (I would personally not trust a random employee of Maistraatti on such an issue). IANAL, but I think that if you follow the procedure above, they have to recognise it.
I mean, there certainly are Pakistani citizens in Finland that married in Pakistan and they have the marriage recognised, so it can't be impossible.

[RazaAhmed]

My thoughts exactly. Intitially, I DID believe them, but after thinking about it, I realized that it seems ridiculous.

After emailing MOFA in Finland, they basically replied back that though there is no way to legalize the marriage certificate within Pakistan, they instructed me to just carry on with the marriage and have her bring back the marriage certificate (legalized by Pakistan's MOFA) to Finland.

"Unfortunately your documents cannot be fully legalized in Pakistan. At the moment there is neither Finnish Embassy nor any other legalizing embassy in Pakistan. Make sure that your document has been legalized by the Foreign Ministry of Pakistan. This was their email reply.


The Ministry for Foreign Affairs have informed the Finnish registering and immigration authorities of the situation and you can send all documents to the Finnish Immigration Servcie/Local Register Offices without legalization. It is up to them to accept or not the unlegalized documents."

It all seems pretty uncertain, and I'm not sure if they'd accept our marriage certificate or not at this point... What could I possibly do on my end to make sure it gets accepted?

[necadam]

It all seems pretty uncertain, and I'm not sure if they'd accept our marriage certificate or not at this point... What could I possibly do on my end to make sure it gets accepted?

Just get the legalisation stamp/paper from Pakistani foreign ministry and try it. In the very unlikely event that maistraatti does not accept it as such, you can escalate it further (administrative courts etc.) with very high chance to succeed (my guess). The maistraatti official would need some solid ground to reject it. In the end, Finland is bound by ECHR and other treaties...

[RazaAhmed]

As of now, this seems like the most practical solution, even if it's on probability...

I just needed clarification, as I'm not exactly aware of legalities as much as I wish I was.

"Just get the legalisation stamp/paper from Pakistani foreign ministry"

When you say stamp paper, do you mean to simply take the marriage certificate issued by NADRA and get it stamped by MOFA, or are you talking about including the marriage certificate with an affidavit?

Thanks again for the help.