i) Accusation of an Offence Made to a Competent Authority

(b) To hard labour for a term from six to nine months, if the false accusation be in respect of a crime liable to a punishment not higher to a punishment of hard labour or imprisonment for a term of two years, but not liable to the punishments established for contraventions

(c) to imprisonment for a term of three days to three months, if the false accusation be in respect of an offence liable to the punishments established for contraventions.

Where the crime is committed with intent to extort money or other effects, the punishment shall be increased by one degree, and shall in all cases be that of hard labour” .

The constituent elements of this crime are three:

(i) Accusation of an offence made to a competent authority

(ii) Intent to harm the person accused

(iii) Knowledge on the part of the accuser of the innocence of the person accused.

We will now briefly consider each of such elements separately.

(i) Accusation of an Offence Made to a Competent Authority

In our system of law, as we shall see more fully in our studies of Criminal Procedure, the criminal action is essentially public and is vested in the Government which, exercises it in the name of His Majesty through the Executive Police or the Attorney General as provided in each case by the law. Such action is exercised “ex officio” in all cases in which the complaint of the injured party is not requisite to set the action in motion or in which the law does not expressly leave the exercise thereof to the private party (Section 4). By Section 529 any person may give information to the police of any offence liable to prosecution “ex officio” of which he may have in any way become aware. And by Section 532 any person who considers himself aggrieved by any offence and who may wish proceedings to be taken for the punishment of the offender, if known, or if unknown, in case he be discovered, may make an instance or complaint to any officer of the police.

Such information and complaint are two of the ways in which notice of the commission of an offence is given to the police. Another form of “notizia criminis” is the “report”,

that is to say, the notice which certain public officers are expressly bound by law to give of an offence of which they may have become aware in the execution of their duties.

Now when the law in the definition of the crime under discussion speaks of “accusation” it refers to all or any of the several ways in which notice of an offence is given to the competent authority. For indeed it is limited to those formal ways contemplated in the law of procedure above referred to. According to the authorities, for the crime of calumnious accusation it is not essential that the information or complaint or report or other notice given of the offence should satisfy all the requirements of form which the law of procedure prescribes95 . Any act which is calculated to give rise to criminal proceedings against an innocent person is sufficient, for the law of procedure prescribes these requirements of form to ensure the authenticity of the writing and of the facts and circumstances which it describes, and not to afford impunity to calumnious accusations though informally made which may expose the victim to the same perils96. However, in the Criminal Appeal of Police vs. N. Brincat et. 97 , Montanaro Gauci J. held that, to constitute this crime, the “accusation” (denunzia) of the offence must be spontaneous: it is not sufficient that it was merely voluntary. Consequently, if the accusation was made, for instance, in answer to questions put by the Police, a charge of calumnious accusation would not arise. The charge that would arise is, in appropriate cases, that of defamation.

The false accusation made to the competent authority must be of an offence: that is to say, it must refer to a fact which has the character of a criminal wrong be it even only a contravention. The reason for this is easy to find. It is only when a fact is attributed to a person which the law characterises as a criminal offence that the competent authority may be moved to institute proceedings against the person accused and it is only in such case that such person may be exposed to injury through the misdirected instrumentality of penal justice. If therefore the fact does not constitute a criminal offence, however morally reprehensible, mischievous, or injurious to character or reputation it may be, this first element of the crime of calumnious

95 Of. Criminal Appeal “Police vs. Carmelo Mifsud", 27.3.35 per Bartolo J. 96 Vide Maino, op. Cit. art. 212, para. 1098, and the authorities he quotes 97 24/10/1951