Slander and deliberately false denunciation: differences in crimes and liability

A deliberately false denunciation is one of the forms of disseminating information that can cause significant damage to a person’s reputation, honor and dignity.
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Today, knowingly false denunciation is a criminal offense that is subject to punishment in accordance with this article.

How to spot a false accusation

The law says that only an accusation made by a person who is sure that he is telling a lie can be called false. Then this crime is qualified as a knowingly false accusation.

A false accusation and a false denunciation must be distinguished. They differ in the following features:

• a false accusation concerns any facts from a person’s life that can cast a shadow on him, and a false denunciation can only occur in relation to a crime committed;
• in the case of a false accusation, untrue and defamatory facts can be reported both to ordinary citizens and to persons occupying certain positions, and when a false denunciation occurs, all information is intended only for authorities that can initiate criminal proceedings;
• a false accusation does not serve the purpose of subjecting a person to trial, unlike denunciation, which implies bringing an innocent citizen to justice.

What is a False Accusation?

People often accuse others of something, including knowingly falsely. And those wrongfully accused sometimes don’t even try to object. This is absolutely wrong - the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation has a special article on libel, which protects all victims of slander (Article 128.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

It is worth distinguishing between accusations, insults and defamation. A false accusation is a malicious distortion of information with the aim of tarnishing one’s reputation, causing damage to one’s health and financial situation. Insult is not exactly slander. Insult is understood as direct humiliation of a person, indecent statements towards the victim. False rumors are called defamation.

All these phenomena have the same root motive - humiliation of the honor and dignity of a particular person. However, real punishment only occurs for false accusations. The offender disseminates false or fictitious information with the aim of defaming another citizen.

This differs from insults in that such accusations become available to the public - this is the main basis for initiating a criminal case. If the victim makes a claim of false information without factual evidence, such a claim is unlikely to be accepted, considered and, accordingly, satisfied. So, for a slander to be recognized as false, it must be expressed publicly:

• at various performances;
• in mass media;
• in Internet resources;
• in published documents;
• transmitted through third parties.

Any public announcement of false information is grounds for libel charges. The distortion can also be in any format - oral, in the form of documents, photographs, videos or audio recordings.

The main criterion for criminal punishment is intentionality. The charge arises when the perpetrator deliberately misrepresents the victim in order to discredit his reputation, career and work relationships.

That is why insults that are spoken directly or transmitted through third parties are not slander. Insults are subject to administrative liability, while false accusations are subject to exclusively criminal liability.

Slanders are not slander if the distributor is fully confident in their accuracy and truthfulness (however, it is almost impossible to prove this). Distorted information does not include quarrels with obscene/obscene statements made by the parties towards each other.

Describing the negative or negative character traits of an offended person is also not slander, but an expression of the citizen’s personal position or hostility.

False accusation: article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

This crime has its own elements and is considered in accordance with Article 128.1 of the Criminal Code of Russia. It states that information disseminated by the offender must be intentionally false. One should not confuse the circumstances when a person is slandered to his face and lies told about him to other people. False accusations can have punishable consequences only if they are transmitted to other people with the aim of slandering the victim.

The person who received the false information must act as a witness to the false accusation. In court proceedings, this witness will play a vital role.

Often, the victim makes false accusations and calls a slanderer a person who, according to the law, is not one. After all, no one knows whether the citizen spreading false information is sure that he is lying. And if a deliberate lie is not proven, there is simply no corpus delicti.

Simply put, you can hold a person accountable for a false accusation based on the following facts:

• the presence of false negative information about a person communicated to a third party;
• evidence that the violator had criminal intent and was aware that he was reporting false facts.

Don't be angry and don't be silent: how to respond to a false accusation

Imagine that your neighbor accuses you of stealing. You didn't do this. But the neighbor doesn’t believe it and continues to insist. At this time, other neighbors approach and watch the confrontation unfold.

How would you respond to a false accusation? Perhaps they would get angry. But even if this anger is justified, it will increase the likelihood that your neighbors will think you are guilty.

This is the key finding of a new study published in the journal Psychological Science. Paradoxically, anger can cause the accused to be seen as guilty, even though anger is usually a sign of innocence.

Why is that? The study notes that we monitor other people's emotions to understand social situations. And especially when deciding whether to trust someone.

For example, past research suggests that people use reliability to make judgments about whether a person is guilty. Moreover, it has been proven that anger makes people less trustworthy. With these two findings in mind, the researchers hypothesized:

“...when a person sees the suspect’s anger, he finds him unreliable, thereby forming an idea of ​​guilt. He may even interpret the suspect's expressed anger as a deceitful attempt to appear innocent, feigning moral indignation. Observers consider the angry suspect guilty because they sense insincerity.”

If the accusation is false, remain calm... but not silent

Six studies examined how lay people and experts make judgments of guilt when the accused is angry. In one series of studies, participants watched clips of people accused of minor crimes arguing their case in a courtroom on a TV show called "Judge Faith." The results showed that participants were more likely to judge defendants who were angry to be guilty.

In another study, participants read about a fictional man named Andrew Smith who was accused of committing an armed robbery. The study included four versions of Smith's reaction to the accusations during his hypothetical testimony: anger, calm, silence and irritation. In the case of silence, it was said that Smith invoked the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution (“A person accused of a crime has the right to due process of law.” - Ed.). In other cases the description looked like this:

• Calm: “I really can’t believe I’m being accused of this crime.”
• Irritation: “I’m annoyed that I’m being accused of this crime.”
• Anger: “I’m absolutely furious that I’m being accused of this crime!”

Participants made the most decisions about Smith's guilt in cases where he remained silent. In addition, when he was angry, Smith seemed most guilty to participants, and when he was irritated, he seemed more guilty than when he was calm.

In a similar experiment, participants read one of two fictional scenarios involving a man named Nathan. In both cases, he was credibly accused, but not necessarily guilty, of either cheating on his girlfriend or stealing money from his employer. Participants were randomly given texts with either an angry or a calm reaction. The anger state was as follows: “Nathan raises his voice and angrily denies responsibility, exclaiming, “I'm so angry that you think I could have done this!” Calm: "Nathan calmly denies responsibility, stating, 'I really can't believe you think I could do this.' Again, participants were more likely to call the hero guilty when he was angry.

Do ordinary people really think that anger is a sign of guilt? To test this idea, the researchers conducted an experiment similar to the previous one, but the participants were professionals who regularly have to make informed judgments about the guilt of others, such as fraud investigators and auditors.

And they also rated expressions of anger as a sign of guilt. Like silence, which is interesting.

Falsely accused are more evil

When someone reacts angrily to an accusation, other people tend to view that person as guilty. But is anger really a sign of guilt?

To test this, the researchers asked another group of participants to complete one of two tasks, both of which involved text editing. One task was simple, the other difficult. All participants were told that they would be paid for completing the task.

After the participants completed the task, the researchers told them that they had done it incorrectly and therefore would not receive a bonus payment. This was a false accusation for the participants doing the simple task because most of them did it correctly. Meanwhile, the participants who were given the difficult task made mistakes in most cases, so the accusations were mostly justified.

The researchers then asked both groups how angry they were. The results showed that those who were falsely accused experienced significantly greater feelings of anger than those who were justly accused.

Man is a very bad lie detector

Overall, the results show that most people are simply bad at detecting lies. This deficiency likely contributes not only to interpersonal conflicts but also to false criminal charges.

The researchers said their findings add important information to the field of deception detection by showing that anger serves as a sign of innocence rather than guilt.

“This is especially important because most studies of the emotional cues of deception find little connection between other discrete emotions and guilt,” the researchers wrote. “Although research on the psychology of anger suggests that the social information it reflects is that someone else is at fault, we believe that anger in this context falsely conveys the opposite to others: guilt.”

The study concluded: “There are many reasons to feel angry when accused of wrongdoing, but perhaps none is as powerful as the belief that the accusation is false.”

Source

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How is false accusation punishable?

Punishment follows if it is proven that false information has been disseminated, which does not confirm that a person has committed criminal acts, but falsely discredits him. If it is proven that the criminal was aware of his lie, he faces forced labor of up to one hundred and sixty hours. Also, the violator may be punished with a fine of half a million rubles.

If deliberately false information has been spread about you that you have committed a serious offense, you can go directly to court. The offender can be punished with forced labor for a period of two months or pay a huge fine of about five million rubles.

Self-incrimination (falsely accusing yourself) is also classified as a crime, because it can confuse the matter and mislead the court. For such a violation, a citizen may be punished as for false denunciation or giving deliberately untruthful testimony.

Similarities and differences between concepts

Knowingly false denunciation is a crime, the main purpose of which is to deliberately mislead law enforcement agencies of various authorities, including through the special creation of evidence that in fact has nothing to do with reality (“fabrication of evidence and materials for a criminal case”). .

Slander is
the deliberate dissemination of knowingly false information that discredits the person in respect of whom it is disseminated.