General Provisions

which the tools must serve and makes clear, precise and certain the notion of the offence here contemplated264. The Italian Court of Cassation held several times that if the instruments are not exclusively adapted for the falsification of coin, but are adapted for other uses also, the corresponding provision of the Italian Code does not apply, even though the possessor kept the same for the purpose of counterfeiting coin265 .

But the fact that the dies, instruments or machines are not entirely fit for making coins or things which might easily be passed for coins does not necessarily mean that the person making or knowingly possessing such tools will be exempt from all punishment. If they are fit for making impressions similar to those of coins or pieces of metal of the dimensions corresponding to those of coin, whether on both sides or on one side only, the offender is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine (multa) (Section 172 (2)).

It is finally to be noted that in these provisions the law speaks generally of "coining" and "coins". It makes no distinction between gold or silver or copper coins, nor between coins legally current in the Islands and other coins.

General Provisions

Any person guilty of the coinage offences above described is exempted from punishment if, before the completion of the offence and previously to any proceedings, he gives the first information thereof and reveals the offender to the competent authorities (Section 173).

We have already met with similar provisions in dealing with crimes against the safety of the Government, and for the justification thereof and its general interpretation we will make reference to what we then said. But there is one point in connection with this provision which requires careful consideration. The impunity is granted in respect of any of the coinage offences contemplated in our Code, provided the disclosure of the offence and the offender is made before the completion of the offence. It is essential, therefore, to enquire when each of such offences can be said to be completed. The

264 Maino, art. 260, para. 1276 265 Maino, ibid.

answer is given by Roberti in his comments on article 271 of the Neapolitan Code which is identical with our section as follows:

"On the one hand, there is no doubt that the falsification of coin constitutes in the eye of the law a completed crime so soon as the counterfeiting or altering of the coin is completed; likewise there is a completed crime in the introduction in the kingdom of counterfeit or altered coin, although in neither case the false money has yet been uttered or put off: finally, there is a completed crime in the making of dies or other instruments exclusively intended for counterfeiting coin, independently of the counterfeiting or the uttering thereof. But, on the other hand, it is no less undoubted that, as regards the purpose of the offender in all the said crimes, they cannot be considered as complete except when he has obtained that gain which he expected, that is, when he has actually uttered or put off the false money.

Now, it is of the latter completion, we think, that the law intends to speak in article 271. And, indeed, the object of the legislator could not certainly have been other than that of preventing the false money from being put into circulation: and as this can be achieved by the disclosure which perchance is made by any of the principals or accomplices in the falsification, so by the promise of impunity the law invites the offenders to make such disclosure, making it profitable for them to repent after may be the completion of the offence, but before any real mis- chief has been done to the community and, therefore, in time to prevent such mischief. If it were otherwise, the provision of the article which we comment would be utterly idle and also useless. Idle because if the impunity which the law promises were to be restricted to the case in which the disclosure is made before the falsification is done, there would be no need to resort to article 271, inasmuch as the same impunity would accrue by virtue of the rules of attempts remaining without effect owing to the voluntary desistance of the offender; useless, because if the disclosure made after the execution of the falsification, although prior to the uttering, did not avail to exempt the offender from the punishment for the falsification, there would be no case in which the law would attain its object which is that of presenting the false coin from being put into circulation, for there would be no one among the offenders who would come forward to disclose, thereby offering evidence of his own crime and subjecting himself, at the same time, to its punishment.