Alice asks:

I’m lodging a NOIM for a couple where the bride is Japanese. She has a passport (which is in English), but Japanese passports do not include place of birth, so I’ll also have to use her birth certificate (which is in Japanese). She already has a translation of her birth certificate from the American Translator’s Association from 2016. Does she need to get another from a NAATI-accredited translator or will her ATA translation suffice? 

The guidelines state that “The Marriage Regulations do not require translations to be provided by an accredited translator, except where a person consenting to a minor’s marriage gives a consent that is not in English” but they also state “When a party to a marriage produces a document in a language other than English, the celebrant (even if they can read and write in that language) should ask the couple to seek an official NAATI certified translation of the document.” 

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