Criminal liability for Perjury: international experience

Abstract

The current interest in the problems of unreliable allegations is due to the public danger of knowingly false testimony not only in our country. Thousands of citizens are interrogated every day around the world, because to this day the testimony of witnesses and victims is the most common source of evidence. Therefore, the urgent need to increase the efficiency of the judiciary and the inevitability of punishment is to form in them an active attitude to their responsibilities as witnesses and awareness of responsibility for false allegations.

The article presents a comparison of individual sections of the criminal codes of different countries regarding liability for inaccurate statements. In world jurisdiction, perjury is considered a serious crime, leads to miscarriages of justice as it can be used to usurp the authority of the court. State and European laws also punish perjury. In general, the choice of the punishment is within the competence of judges and can range from a fine and correctional labor to imprisonment, depending on local laws and the circumstances of the particular case. In Switzerland, perjury is punishable by imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years, in Israel - for up to 7 years, in the USA - up to 5 years, in Germany - up to 5 years, in Great Britain - up to 7 years.

False testimony (perjury), in the global sense, is a crime that is expressed in the deliberate giving of knowingly false information to law enforcement agencies, courts or authorities. It often takes the form of giving false testimony by a witness or accused in court or during an investigation, as well as by an official under oath.

False testimony is to be understood as the intentional act of a false oath or falsification of a statement of truth, orally or in writing, on matters relevant to formal proceedings. Interesting is the fact that in some world jurisdictions, a false statement (intentionally or unintentionally) made under oath (a lie about one's age) is not considered a crime. Criminal liability is considered to arise only when the applicant erroneously asserts the truth of the statements (made or expected) that are relevant to the outcome of the trial (lying about his age, when age is a fact that affects the legal outcome.

The process of evolution of criminal liability for deception has led to the formation in most states of systematized by the institutions of criminal law regulations - codes (agreements, summaries, etc.) with relevant articles.