Technically, this is not allowed by SEF.
You are supposed to have a translation certified by one of the following: Portuguese Notary; Portuguese Consulate in the country where the document was passed; Consulate of that country in Portugal. In order to achieve that, these entities need to ‘recognize’ the translator and ‘certify’ their translation as ‘true’.
No apostille is involved in this process.
I am guessing the scenario you descbibe is as follows:
- Translation to Portuguese is done in the country of original documents or in the ‘home’ country of GV applicant.
- Translation is then notarized in that country (not in Portugal).
- Apostille is placed onto that notarized translation
- Apostille further needs to be translated into Portuguese (I guess by the PT GV lawyer)
There are couple of issues with this variant:
- not strictly compliant with SEF requirements
- more steps involved hence may be longer and more expensive