Document Authentication
A structured evaluation of the reliability and provenance of foreign documents — arrest warrants, court summonses, party membership cards, and identity records — weighed in the round against country evidence.
DOC
Primary source categories
- Verified genuine exemplars
- Issuing-authority procedures
- Forensic document literature
- Country fraud reporting
- Local legal practitioners
- Comparative document archives
How the expert gathers and tests the intelligence.
We examine format, seals, letterhead, registration numbers, and language against verified exemplars of genuine documents of the same type and era.
We assess whether the document could have been produced by the issuing authority in the manner and timeframe claimed.
The document is considered in the round, alongside the objective country evidence on how such documents are issued and forged.
We give a reasoned assessment of reliability. Documents are not assessed in isolation; their weight is determined in the context of all the evidence.
Objectively contextualising government country notes.
Official country materials carry weight, but they are not the last word. Our reports engage them directly and transparently.
Fraud & corruption evidence
Where official materials assert that documents of a given type are widely available fraudulently, we address that evidence and explain what it does — and does not — establish about a specific document.
Issuance practice
We set out the documented issuance practice of the relevant authority, which is often more nuanced than a general assertion of unreliability.
Assessed in the round
Documents are not assessed in isolation; their weight is determined in the context of the evidence as a whole.
Bounded conclusions
Where authenticity cannot be established to a given standard, the report says so plainly rather than overstating certainty.
It is the duty of experts to help the decision-maker on matters within their expertise. This duty overrides any obligation to the person from whom experts have received instructions or by whom they are paid.
— Expert duty to the court or tribunal