Who is a "person who makes notary action"?

A notary is a person who certifies documents. Who is "a person who makes notary action"? Is that the notary or the customer who asked for his documents to be certified? I got this phrase from a local translator who is translating my documents. Here is the complete sentence:

I explained to the person who makes notary action that the certification of the true copy of the document does not confirm the legality of document content and correspondence of the stated facts to reality.

The original sentence has the meaning that the notary explained to me that if the original document is a sham, then the certification of this copy of that document will not make the original document legal.

Making an action is not standard English in its usual sense (actions are done, not made). Where did you see this phrase? Please edit the question to include the full context (at least the sentence itself, preferably more than one sentence).

2 Answers 2

Actions are not made in English. They are done or carried out. If we put that right, the sentence becomes

I explained to the person who does the notary action that .

That is, someone is explaining the situation to a notary. Is that really what the original says?

There's also a verb notarise, which can be useful.

trans. To have (a document) certified, legalized, or validated by a notary; (of a notary) to validate or certify (a document).

[OED]

The sentence you quote is clumsy to the point of incomprehensibility, and the transposition of who is doing what is characteristic of Google's translation. If we assume that the I of the original is the notary, who is explaining what certifying a copy means, then makes must be requests (or possibly even makes the request for):

I explained to the person who requests the notary action that .

But it can be rendered far more idiomatically as:

I explained that notarising a copy only confirms that the copy is an accurate representation of the original; it does not confirm that the document itself is legal or accurate.

I am a Colorado notary and notary training instructor.

Notarial acts vary by country, so, it is important to know the location of the notary. The OP profile shows he is located in Moscow, Russia. Continental Europe, including Russia, uses civil law notaries, based on Roman law. In fact, the Russian word for notary is notarius, the Latin word for notary.

Civil law notaries go to law school and can prepare, explain, and store documents, as well as perform common notarial acts.

In the U.S., notarial acts derive from English common law, where notaries have little training and fewer authorized functions. They may not prepare or explain legal documents unless they are also licensed to practice law.

Some jurisdictions authorize a notary to make a certified copy of an original document.

The notary only certifies that the certified copy is a true and complete copy (duplicate) of the original, not that the notary has investigated and verified the information in the document is legal, true and correct.

The law may authorize notaries and some other public officials, such as the county clerk, court clerk, or a judge, to also perform notarial acts.

The wording in the translation is awkward and makes no sense. The notary would perform the notarial act of making a certified copy and may caution the customer that the notary's signature and seal do not mean the contents of the document are legal or verified to be true.

The customer would make a request for a notarial act of a certified copy.