Art. 458 CP
False testimony
The witness who departs from the truth in judicial proceedings answers with prison of 6 months to 2 years and a fine; if the testimony is against the accused in a criminal case, 1 to 3 years, and if a conviction also followed, penalties one degree higher. The offence requires a lie about relevant facts: peripheral inaccuracy or forgetting do not integrate it. The review of the complete examination (not loose phrases) dismantles most querellas; as prosecution, we choose the moment, because the querella after a final judgment declaring the mendacity proved multiplies viability.
Art. 459 CP
Experts and interpreters
Experts or interpreters who maliciously depart from the truth receive the penalties of art. 458 in their upper half and special disqualification of 6 to 12 years. Good-faith technical discrepancy is not an offence: without intent to falsify, the mistaken report is fought with counter-expertise, not with a querella.
In practice
Against experts, the real route is the counter-expertise
Art. 459 requires malicious mendacity, not discrepancy: we reserve the criminal action for demonstrable falsehoods (invented data, impossible measurements), where the 6-to-12-year disqualification makes the process existential for the expert.
Art. 460 CP
Alterations without substantially departing from the truth
Silencing facts or altering testimony with reticence or inaccuracies without substantially departing from the truth: a fine and disqualification where applicable. The lesser step, designed for half-truths, useful when the witness selectively “does not remember” what would incriminate them to remember. It is proved by documentary contrast: what they said before, what is on record, what they omitted.
Art. 461 CP
Presenting false witnesses or experts
Whoever knowingly presents false witnesses or mendacious experts answers with the same penalties as them. It reaches the litigant and, with aggravated disqualification, the lawyer or court agent who does so in professional practice. The imputation of the lawyer requires proven knowledge of the mendacity, not the mere defeat of the witness; as prosecution we invoke it when the scheme of prepared witnesses is patent (cloned contradictions, recorded rehearsals).
Art. 463 CP
Non-appearance that suspends the trial
Unjustified non-appearance, after summons in legal form, at a trial with the accused in pre-trial detention causing its suspension: prison of 3 to 6 months or a fine; with specific penalties for lawyers, court agents and officials. The diary does not exempt: we protect ourselves with documented prior communications of impossibility, because art. 463 punishes the lack of justification, not a real scheduling conflict communicated in time.
Art. 464 CP
Obstruction through violence or intimidation
Influencing directly or indirectly, with violence or intimidation, complainants, witnesses, experts, parties or their relatives so that they modify their procedural conduct: prison of 1 to 4 years and a fine; and later reprisals, autonomous punishment. It is the offence that protects our witnesses from pressures. Pressures are proved with immediacy: preserved messages, same-day reports, protection requested. As defence, we distinguish punishable pressure from lawful contact between co-accused or relatives: not every approach is obstruction.
Arts. 465 and 466 CP
Destruction of proceedings and revelation of secrets
Destroying or hiding documents or proceedings, and revealing proceedings declared secret (art. 466, with specific penalties for lawyers and court agents), close the system with fines, prison and disqualifications. The case file leaked to the press has an author, and art. 466 awaits them.
Art. 467 CP
Professional disloyalty
The disloyalty of the lawyer who deliberately harms their client or advises both parties requires harm and intent: changes of firm and supervening conflicts are resolved with documented abstention, not with querellas.
