Hello,

Entschuldigung, meine Deutsch ist leider nicht so gut. Deshalb schreibe ich in Englisch

I got married in this year and I am doing family reunion for my wife and step daughter from German embassy in Nigeria.

We got a mail from the embassy asking for the original court ruling but it's not possible to get this legally in Nigeria. The court will give you a certified true copy and keep the original in it's possesion. Every court ruling in Nigeria is public document, so they only give certified true copies out but never the original. We replied the embassy that we cannot get the original court ruling but they wrote back that we must provide this documents else we won't get the visa for my step-daughter

Right now we don't know what to do

I am thinking of writing the ABH here in Berlin and involving a lawyer is all options do not work

Does anybody have any advice what we can do in this scenario

vielen dank

deerhunter schrieb am 25.10.2018 um 07:16:03:


If there are some other problems, then they should communicate this but we cannot provide a document that we can't get. Even here in Germany, it's not possible to get an original court document as seen here https://dejure.org/gesetze/ZPO/317.html only copies will be handed out.

Also, if the court hand us the original to document a and then years later document b requested the document also what do we provide to them, also if someone wants to appeal the judgement, if the court does not have the original again, what will be the proof. So I personally don't see any reason why they will want us to provide a document that can't be gotten.

Someone suggested there is probably a miscommunication somewhere

We also got only certified copies of the registered original documents. And the office and court where we got them from have on their websites that this is the only form that will be given by them to everybody.

I also wrote to the German embassy about the  "problem"  because according their website they also wanted original documents. Their answer was that the certified copies would be ok. They were accepted and treatened like original documents in the end.

Melanny schrieb am 25.10.2018 um 14:18:36:


Hello, I tried to PM but can't currently, if you still have the follow of the letter you wrote to the embassy, can you please forward it to me. Maybe that will clarify things better to them



They already have the original of the Certified True Copy with them and when they requested the original document, we sent photocopies of the CTC to them again. I think what we need to do now is to explain to them that the CTC from court is actually the original

Aras schrieb am 25.10.2018 um 13:58:57:



Petersburger schrieb am 25.10.2018 um 15:06:44:


Actually, we did a quick search on Google and found out that the person in charge just resumed the role in Nigeria 3 months ago so it's possible that we are just unlucky and she's following what is stated in the book to the letter

To give an update:

We had to get a lawyer to communicate with embassy and after several back and forth and also court threaten they finally agreed that they don't need it

Zunächst zum Sorgerechtsurteil: Es ist tatsächlich so, dass uns für die weitere Bearbeitung des Visumvorganges die Originalurkunde nicht vorliegen muss. Da wir grundsätzlich Originalunterlagen verlangen, war ich davon ausgegangen, dass auch diese hier notwendig ist. Wir können aber darauf verzichten, den Prüfsticker auf die Originalunterlage aufzubringen. Das Problem hierbei wäre lediglich, dass damit der Nachweis für Behörden in Deutschland fehlen würde, dass diese Unterlage bereits auf ihre Echtheit überprüft wurde. Sollten Sie aber hierauf verzichten, muss selbstverständlich die Originalurkunde nicht vorliegen.

They have sent email to send passport for them to issue the visa for her and our daughter. Though I am a bit pissed that we had to go through all that stress to make them review their processes but I am happy it's finally over.

thanks to all