The Latin word periurium came to Spanish as perjury . This is what the act of swearing falsely or the violation of sworn faith is called.
Perjury, therefore, consists of lying while under oath . He who performs this action is referred to as a perjurer .
It is important to note that the concept appears in different areas. For Catholicism , perjury involves taking a false oath, which infringes the virtue of religion and is a sin by entailing a lie.
Given that taking an oath correctly implies an act of worship to God, accepting his role as a witness of the facts given his omniscience (absolute knowledge of everything real and possible) and his perfection, invoking his testimony to affirm something false constitutes a very negative way of proceeding for religion.
This sin is considered mortal in almost all cases, except for those in which the subject ignores the truth and repeats false information without being aware of it. Doubt never justifies perjury: if we are not sure of our knowledge , we should not confirm it simply because it is probable, since if it is not true we will also incur sin in the eyes of the Church.
At the judicial level, perjury can be constituted as a crime . In a criminal trial, the witness is obliged to tell the truth; Otherwise, he incurs perjury. This penalty of perjury aims to guarantee the veracity and value of the witness's testimony.
Perjury appears when the law requires the subject to promise or swear to express themselves truthfully . If you do not comply with this command, you commit perjury. On the contrary, when the individual has no legal obligation to tell the truth or can even refuse to answer, perjury does not apply.
While the witness must tell the truth (and therefore, if he lies, he is punished for his perjury), the accused in a criminal proceeding is exempt from this requirement. In this way, if the accused lies, he is not punished.
The criminal sentence for perjury varies according to each legislation. Deliberate noncompliance with the oath of truth is generally punished with a fine and/or deprivation of liberty .
Take as an example the particular case of Spain, where the word perjury itself does not appear in legal dictionaries, but what is called false testimony is applied. At this point we must make a clarification: while in almost all Latin legislation , false testimony refers to a modification of the truth that gives rise to a declaration of imprecise data, perjury is used in Anglo-Saxon countries or Germanic legislation to define the act of not telling the truth despite having agreed to do so by oath.
Despite this difference, given that in Spain it is not possible to condemn perjury directly, this crime falls within the framework of false testimony , since manipulating the truth is nothing other than lying. The regulation of this term is found in articles between 458 and 462, which attack the Administration of Justice, and highlight the following issues:
* A witness who does not tell the truth during his testimony in the context of a trial will receive between six months and two years in prison, in addition to a fine;
* If the false testimony (which we must also understand as perjury) is given to the detriment of the prisoner in a trial for a crime, imprisonment for a period of one to three years and a fine will be imposed.