2. Fabrication of False Evidence

2. Fabrication of False Evidence

Section 109 lays down:

“Whosoever shall fraudulently cause any fact or circumstance to exist, or to appear to exist, in order that such fact or circumstance may afterwards be proved in evidence against another person, with intent to procure such other person to be unjustly charged with, or convicted of, any offence, shall, on conviction, be liable to the punishment established for a false witness, in terms of the preceding sections of this Sub-title.” (i.e., Sections 102-103).

This provision was inserted in the Code on the suggestion of Andrew Jameson who thus wrote in his Report112:

“A criminal conviction may be either prevented or procured by the fabrication of false circumstantial evidence as well as by false swearing as to the circumstances or the fabrication of documentary evidence. These are all varieties of a similar offence, and equally tend to obstruct the due administration of justice. But it is only the two latter offences which are prohibited in the Code. It is plain that if a man artfully makes circumstances - for instance by placing some article of property in the chamber or trunk of another man in the case of theft, or by staining another’s clothes with blood or placing a bloody knife in his room in a case of homicide or bodily harm, he may as effectually mislead a judge or jury as by himself swearing to the facts.” The crime created by this section is in some continental codes and textbooks dealt with as a form of calumnious accusation.

Whereas the false accusation we have already dealt with made orally or in writing by any information, report or complaint constitutes the calumnious accusation properly so called verbal or direct, this other form consisting in falsely fabricating factual evidence of an offence against an innocent person, constitutes the calumnious accusation known as real or Indirect:

112 Pg. 85

“La calunnia reale consiste nel simulare a carico di persona che si sa innocente le tracce o gli indizi materiale di un reato [...] Tale sarebbe il porre sul luogo del reato un oggetto simile a quello portato dalla persona che si vuol colpire, ovvero il porre sulla persona o nell'abitazione altrui un pugnale insanguinato, oppore una cosa furtiva”113 .

The constituent elements of this crime emerge clear from its definition. The material element consists in fabricating, that is, as the law says, falsely causing any fact to exist or appear to exist which may be used as evidence of a criminal offence against an innocent person. The intentional element consists in the intent on the part of the agent to procure that that person be unjustly convicted of or charged with the offence. If these two elements concur the crime subsists, even though the person against whom the evidence was fabricated may not have been, in point of fact, convicted or even charged. Whereas, however, in the case of the calumnious accusation properly so called, i.e., the crime under section 99, such crime is completed by the mere presentation of the information, report or complaint to the competent authority, in the case of this indirect form of calumnious accusation the crime cannot be said to be completed until the fact or circumstance of fact falsely caused to exist or to appear to exist as aforesaid, becomes known to the competent authority:

“Nella calunnia verbale, il momento consumativo e’ certo colla presentazione della denunzia o querela all ‘autorità giudiziaria o al pubblico ufficiale avente obbligo di riferire. Nella calunnia reale, basterà che il calunniatore, allo scopo di esporre a pena un innocente, abbia depositato nell'abitazione di quello - per esempio oggetti di contrabando - perchè si possa dire consumato il delitto? In ciò vi sono certamente gli estremi del tentativo: ma conveniamo con Carrara che non vi sono quelli del delitto consumato, porchè l'obiettivo della calunnia, si verbale che reale, non si limita alla proprietà privata o altro diritto dell'individuo, ma e' precipuamente la pubblica giustizia: perciò il delitto di calunnia reale non si può dire perfetto finchè il fatto non sia venuto a contatto con gli agenti della giustizia e finchè questi non abbiano perquesito e ritrovato”114 .

113 Maino, op., cit., para. 1102 114 Maino, para. 1102; Carrara, Programma, Parte Speciale, Vol. V, para. 2655