Forgery Crime And The Restrictions On A Criminal Judge’s Freedom Of Proof (Legal Alert 164) – Criminal Law – Egypt – Mondaq News Alerts

17 November 2021

Andersen- Maher Milad Iskander & Co

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Forgery, can be defined as tampering with information throughdeletion, addition, or alteration in a manner that causesfundamental, change by one of the ways stipulated by law. Suchmodifications could potentially cause harm to others as they areintentionally founded on deceit.

Forgery may occur within a customary or official document, withan official document being defined as a document signed by a publicofficial who has the authority to do this as a result of the natureof his/her position.

The penalty for forgery of official documents is severe, sinceit constitutes aggression against the State's authority, a lossof trust in State issued documents, damage to the interests ofindividuals, and an overall breach of security and stability insociety.

In order to evaluate whether or not forgery generally exists,the following conditions must be met in totality: it must causeharm to others (for official documents, any change to the documentwould constitute a 'harm'), in addition to provingknowledge of the offense by the wrongdoer. Simply being inpossession of forged documents alone is not sufficient to establishthe knowledge of forgery without supporting evidence.

According to Article 302 of the Egyptian Criminal Procedure Law,a criminal judge shall rule in such cases, according to the beliefthat he has established through his own volition.

Although the law has not restricted the freedom of criminaljudges with regards to taking the steps necessary to reveal thetruth in a manner consistent with reason and logic, it has however,conditioned that a judgment cannot be issued, without submittingthe relevant evidence to the judge, Furthermore, a judge cannotrely on a witness in another case which was not tried before him,nor can rely on an investigation that has taken place before acivil court without a criminal investigation, otherwise thisconstitutes a violation of the right of defense and the judgmentshall be rendered void.

Herein, we refer to one of the cases that were handledby our office, wherein the accused was escalated to the CriminalProsecution's Office on the grounds of forgery of an officialdocument, based on the issuance of a final civil judgment whichallegedly proved this. During the trial, Maher Milad Iskandar, thedefendant's lawyer, argued that the documents in question werenot part of the criminal investigation at the time. He also arguedthat the witness's testimony could not be applied in civilinvestigations. Despite this, the court sentenced the accused to 10years in prison without responding to this defense.

Link to case: https://bit.ly/3nLJSmE

At the appeal level, the judgment was challenged on thegrounds that the judge adjudicated on the matter on the basis ofevidence and testimony of a witness which were not presented to himduring the hearing, and that in issuing their opinion, they hadalso relied on a ruling issued by the civil court claiming forgeryand upon the civil investigations without conducting a criminalinvestigation. Upon hearing the appeal, the Courtof Cassation decided to overturn the appealed judgment, taking intoaccount the reasons for the appeal, namely that a conviction forthe crime of forgery may not be based on a civil judgment, civilinvestigations, or the testimony of a witness not heard by thecourt, otherwise, the judgment would be void.

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances.

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Generally, the court's judgment is the fruit of every litigation, and the outcome of every legal dispute that is referred for resolution by the Court.

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Forgery Crime And The Restrictions On A Criminal Judge's Freedom Of Proof (Legal Alert 164) - Criminal Law - Egypt - Mondaq News Alerts