Today, despite the active transition to electronic document circulation, paper documents are still used by the majority of state institutions and enterprises, which does not contribute to reducing the number of forgeries. It is Article 358 of the Criminal Code that is intended to regulate the issue of forgery of documents.
In particular, a signature is an identifier of a person that confirms the free expression of will. The signature is the property of the individual and it is illegal to forge it. It is worth emphasizing that criminal liability under Article 358 of the Criminal Code arises precisely for the forgery of an official document. The Supreme Court in its rulings has repeatedly highlighted the following criteria for such a document:
The information in the document has a legally significant nature, that is, it is intended to cause legal consequences by the emergence or termination of rights and obligations.
The document must be drawn up by an authorized person of the state authority or another person who is authorized to sign documents of a specific type.
In addition, criminal liability arises for the commission of various actions, the scope of which is covered by Article 358 of the Criminal Code, namely: sale of a forged document, use of a forged document, forgery of a certificate or other official document, production of forged official seals, stamps or forms.
Therefore, in the case of forgery of an official document, criminal liability arises and punishment may be imposed: a fine in the amount of up to one thousand non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens; arrest for up to 6 months; restriction of liberty for up to 2 years.
It is worth noting that the forgery of an unofficial document, for example, personal documents of citizens, gives rise to other types of crimes, in particular, fraud.
Therefore, criminal liability arises for forging a signature in a document, at the same time, it is possible to identify a falsified document only with the use of special technologies during the examination