Studies have shown that documents and their seals , whether official or customary, traditional or electronic, are the subject of criminal protection and for their importance in proving and determining rights and obligations , and the UAE law has singled out a separate chapter of the Penal Code entitled forgery in 14 legal articles , from numbers 211 to 223, in addition to the provisions on the protection of electronic documents of all kinds in the law, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates is familiar with modern and innovative information systems and forgery methods , to be able to examine and scrutinize the evidence gathered by the investigating and charging authorities in order to convict the real accused .

As the field of work in criminal cases has witnessed rapid developments in the mechanisms of litigation and document circulation, in particular government and judicial documents, which are almost completely converted to electronic documents, so the legislator had to address the protection of this new type of business and documents, studies have shown that the legislator’s plan in criminalization and punishment has relied on two criteria :

The first criterion : the type of editor

The second criterion : the status of the offender

The study included clarifying the legal structures for the crimes of falsifying official documents and government seals , and the criminal legislator paid attention to a set of interests that he considers worthy of protection , including these protected interests “trust in transactions between individuals and their stability under Documents of all kinds” as well as “protecting traditional and electronic written evidence from imitation or forgery crimes” as well as “ensuring the handling of official papers and documents with a legal argument on the dealers” , and respect the value of written evidence and certificates issued by official and government agencies.

Definition of forgery: in general, it is changing the truth with the intention of cheating or, as it is called, “written lies” for one of the ways determined by the law, i.e., whether its means and whether its subject matter, and this change would cause harm to others and is accompanied by the intention of using the falsified editor in what was falsified for him.

Due to the seriousness of the crimes of forgery or imitation of official electronic or electronic publications and their use on the state , its interests and individuals , as we have already explained some of its dimensions , the UAE legislator has taken care to confront them and allocated detailed provisions to them in Chapter V entitled “forgery” of Part One entitled “crimes affecting the security and interests of the state” of the second book of the Federal Penal Code No. 3 of 1987 and its amendments, the latest of which is Decree-Law No. 7 of 2016, where Chapter V included two sections, the first is entitled “forgery and imitation of seals, transactions and stamps” in five articles from 211 to 216 , The second section is entitled “forgery of documents” in nine articles from 216 to 223 , as distinguished by the UAE legislation in the criminal confrontation of crimes of forgery of electronic documents, where the legislator has allocated a special specific provision to protect governmental and non-governmental electronic documents from forgery crimes .

In light of the talk about counterfeiting , the practical reality and the accumulated experience of the legal team at THE BLACK ROBE FOR LEGAL CONSULTANCY AND DEBT COLLECTION company proved that most of the forgery crimes or imitation of editors, whether official or customary, as well as government seals, stamps and stamps are carried out by technological methods through the computer, because of its ease and accuracy, in addition to that, despite the seriousness of forgery crimes or imitation of editors and seals on the state and individuals, it has not taken the same attention at the international level, such as counterfeiting and counterfeiting currencies, for example, This is confirmed by the absence of an International Convention on the counterfeiting of official publications and government seals, similar to the convention on combating counterfeiting crimes of currency issued on April 20, 1929, called the Geneva International Convention against counterfeiting currency .

In addition, the practical reality has witnessed the development and spread of official and other forged documents and electronically imitated electronic seals, especially the study certificates of some of the many foreign nationalities, for example in the UAE , which requires good and fast follow-up and prosecution from local control agencies in tracking and arresting the perpetrators of forgery crimes and imitating seals

Also, forgery crimes are often combined with other crimes related to them to complete the rest of the criminal scheme, such as forgery crimes associated with the seizure of public money, the purpose of which is to collect a benefit for the perpetrator of forgery in the official editor, such as seizing state lands or forging an official decision to expropriate a property for public benefit in order to expropriate the property from the real owner, or forgery crimes associated with theft or fraud, and this is often what we see in forging signatures on checks or treasury bills, as well as forgery associated with bribery by an employee for example, the year , In addition , these gangs use this method as a means of their illegal activity and trade , in most cases the official editor is completely falsified, including government seals and signatures of officials, the editor is the vessel that includes all this .

From all of the above, the conversation raises several questions such as:

1 – What are the elements of the crime of forgery or imitation of crimes of forgery of government seals?

2-What about the original penalties for these crimes

3-is damage a pillar of the crime of forgery

At the beginning of answering these questions, we explain that the crime of forgery is based on three pillars, like most of the crimes stipulated in the Penal Code, as follows

First : the crime scene

Second: the physical corner

Third: the moral pillar

Articles No. 211 and 212 of Decree-Law No. 7 of 2016 on the legal protection of all seals and signs of the government , the president of the state , and any of the rulers of the Emirates and its employees from the crimes of imitation and forgery , whether imitation or electronic, and protection includes public confidence in the SEALs and publications issued by the state, and not the protection of the editor himself, and in Article 212 protection was focused on sub-governmental seals, and article it is valid for the occurrence of a crime of imitation or forgery of seals and marks for government interests, in several categories as follows:

First category: the state seal or the seal or signature of the head of state or any of the rulers of the Emirates and their guardians and deputies.

The second category: one of the SEALs, postage stamps, financial or signs of the government and its departments or administration.

The third category: the seal, signature or marks of one of its employees

The fourth category: government stamps for gold, silver or other precious metals or precious stones.

Second: the physical corner

The material element of a crime in general is the “material incident in question” or is its external appearance or physical entity, or is the material factors felt in the outside world as defined by the text of the criminalization or is the criminal behavior that the legislation makes a reason for punishment for it. every crime must have material factors that embody the criminal will of the perpetrator , in application of the legal rule “that there is no crime without a material element”. The material element of the crime entails the intervention of the legislator with punishment due to the serious result that the crime entails from a breach of Community Security, and if the material element of the crime fails , there can be no talk of criminal behavior or Crime, and here the work of Criminal Cases Lawyer in Dubai, Abu Dhabi UAE where he examines the material elements of the crime and its elements to determine whether or not the accused committed the elements of the act of forgery, and therefore the defense is built in the pending case against the accused before the court .In light of the above, we find that the elements of the physical corner are :-

1-imitation or forgery of government seals and documents

2-the use of forged or counterfeit editors and seals

3-the introduction of forged editors and seals in transactions

4-the criminal consequence