Penal Code

In the cases referred to in this Section, any person who uses a document that he knew to be false is punished by reclusion of five to ten years. SECTION IV OF FORGERY IN PRIVATE, COMMERCIAL OR BANKING WRITINGS (Articles 357 to 359)

Any person who, in one of the ways provided for in Article 354, commits or attempts to commit forgery in commercial or banking writings is punished by imprisonment from one to five years and a fine of 250 to 20.000 dirhams. The offender may, moreover, be sentenced to deprivation of one or more of the rights mentioned in Article… Show more

Any person who, in one of the ways provided for in Article 354, commits or attempts to commit forgery in private writings is punished by imprisonment from one to five years and a fine of 250 to 2.000 dirhams. The offender may, moreover, be sentenced to deprivation of one or more of the rights mentioned in Article 40 and to a prohibition of residence that may not exceed five years.

In the cases referred to in this section, any person who makes use of a document which he knew to be false shall be liable to the penalties punishing forgery, according to the distinctions provided for in the two preceding articles. - - SECTION V FORGERIES COMMITTED IN CERTAIN ADMINISTRATIVE DOCUMENTS AND CERTIFICATES (Articles 360 to 367)

Any person who counterfeits, falsifies or alters permits, certificates, booklets, cards, bulletins, receipts, passports, mission orders, route sheets, passes or other documents issued by public administrations for the purpose of establishing a right, an identity or a status, or of granting an authorization, shall be liable to im… Show more

Any person who wrongfully procures or attempts wrongfully to procure the issue to himself of one of the documents designated in the preceding article, either by making false declarations, or by assuming a false name or a false status, or by supplying false information, certificates or attestations, shall be liable to imprisonmen… Show more

Lodging-house keepers and innkeepers who knowingly enter in their registers, under false or assumed names, the persons lodged with them, or who, in collusion with such persons, omit to enter them, shall be liable to imprisonment from one to six months and to a fine of 200134 to 500 dirhams or to only one of these two penalties.… Show more

Any person who, in order to exempt himself or another person from any public service, fabricates, under the name of a physician, surgeon, dentist, health officer or midwife, a certificate of illness or infirmity shall be liable to imprisonment from one to three years.

Any physician, surgeon, dentist, health officer or midwife who, in the exercise of his functions and in order to favour someone, falsely certifies or conceals the existence of an illness or infirmity or a state of pregnancy, or provides false indications as to the origin of an illness or infirmity or the cause of a death, shall… Show more

Any person who draws up, under the name of a public official or public officer, a certificate of good conduct, of indigence, or relating other circumstances likely to attract the benevolence of the authorities or of private individuals to the person designated in that certificate, to procure for him positions, credit or assistan… Show more

Any person shall be liable to imprisonment from six months to two years and to a fine of 200135 to 1.000 dirhams or to only one of these two penalties, unless the act constitutes a more serious offence, who: 1° knowingly draws up an attestation or certificate relating materially inaccurate facts; 2° falsifies or modifies in any… Show more

The forgeries punishable under this section, where they have been committed to the prejudice of the Public Treasury or of a third party, shall be punished according to their nature, either as forgery in public or authentic writings, or as forgery in private, commercial or banking writings. 135 - Ibid. - - SECTION VI FALSE TESTIMONY, FALSE OATH AND FAILURE TO TESTIFY (Articles 368 to 379)

False testimony is the intentional alteration of the truth, likely to mislead the court in favour of or to the detriment of one of the parties, made under oath by a witness in the course of criminal, civil or administrative proceedings in a deposition that has become irrevocable.

Any person who is guilty of false testimony in a criminal matter, whether against the accused or in his favour, shall be liable to reclusion from five to ten years. If the false witness has received money, any reward or promises, the penalty shall be that of reclusion from ten to twenty years. In the event of the accused being s… Show more

Any person who is guilty of false testimony in offence matters, whether against the accused or in his favour, shall be punished by imprisonment from two to five years and a fine of 200136 to 1.000 dirhams. If the false witness has received money, any reward or promises, the term of imprisonment may be increased to ten years and the maximum fine to 2.000 dirhams.

Any person who is guilty of false testimony in simple police matters, whether against the accused or in his favour, shall be punished by 136 - Ibid. - - imprisonment from three months to one year and a fine of 60 to 100 dirhams137. If the false witness has received money, any reward or promises, the penalty shall be imprisonment from six months to two years and a fine of 200138 to 500 dirhams.

Any person who is guilty of false testimony in civil or administrative matters shall be punished by imprisonment from two to five years and a fine of 200139 to 2.000 dirhams. If the false witness has received money, any reward or promises, the term of imprisonment may be increased to ten years and the fine to 4.000 dirhams. The… Show more

Any person who, in any matter, at any stage of a procedure or with a view to a claim or a defence in court, uses promises, offers or gifts, pressure, threats, acts of violence, manoeuvres or artifices to induce another person to make a deposition or a statement or to issue a false attestation, shall be punished, whether or not t… Show more

The interpreter who, in criminal, civil or administrative matters, knowingly misrepresents the substance of oral statements or of documents 137 - After the minimum of fines for offences had been raised to 200 dirhams pursuant to Article 2 of Law No. 3-80 amending certain provisions of the aforementioned Penal Code, the minimum f… Show more

Any expert who, appointed by the judicial authority, gives orally or in writing, at any stage of the procedure, a false opinion or asserts facts which he knows to be contrary to the truth, shall be liable to the penalties for false testimony according to the distinctions provided for in Articles 369 to 372.

The subornation of an expert or interpreter shall be punished as subornation of a witness in accordance with the provisions of Article 373.

Any person to whom an oath is tendered or referred in civil matters and who makes a false oath shall be punished by imprisonment from one to five years and a fine of 200141 to 2.000 dirhams.

Any person who, knowing the proof of the innocence of a person held in pre-trial detention or tried for a crime or offence, voluntarily refrains from immediately bringing testimony thereof to the judicial or police authorities shall be punished: where the matter concerns a crime, by imprisonment of two to five years and a fine o… Show more

In the case where, pursuant to one of the articles of this section, only a penalty for an offence is incurred, the offender may, in addition, be subjected for at least five years and at most ten years to the prohibition of one or more of the rights mentioned in Article 40 of this Code. SECTION VII OF THE USURPATION OR IRREGULAR USE OF FUNCTIONS, TITLES OR NAMES (Articles 380 to 391)

Any person who, without title, interferes in public, civil or military functions or performs an act of one of these functions shall be punished by imprisonment from one to five years unless the act constitutes a more serious offence.

Any person who, without fulfilling the conditions required to bear it, uses or claims a title attached to a legally regulated profession, an official diploma or a status whose conditions of award are fixed by the public authority shall be punished, unless more severe penalties are provided by a special text, by imprisonment from three months to two years and a fine of 200143 to 5.000 dirhams or by only one of these two penalties.

Any person who, without right, publicly wears a regulation uniform, a distinctive costume of a function or status, an 143 - Ibid. - - official insignia or a decoration of a national or foreign order shall be punished by imprisonment from three months to one year and a fine of 200144 to 1.000 dirhams or by only one of these two penalties, unless the act is treated as an aggravating circumstance of a more serious offence.

Any person who, either in an official act or habitually, improperly attributes to himself a title or an honorary distinction shall be punished by imprisonment from one to two months or a fine of 200145 to 1.000 dirhams.

Any person who publicly wears attire that bears a resemblance likely to cause confusion in the public mind with the uniforms of the Royal Armed Forces, the gendarmerie, National Security, the customs administration, any official exercising judicial police functions or the auxiliary police forces, shall be punished by imprisonment of one to six months and a fine of 200146 to 500 dirhams or by only one of these two penalties.

Any person who, in a public or authentic instrument or in an administrative document intended for the public authority, improperly assumes a patronymic name other than his own, shall be punished by a fine of 200147 to 1.000 dirhams.

Any person who, by taking a false name or a false capacity, causes an extract from the criminal record of a third party to be issued to him, shall be punished by imprisonment of one month to one year. 144 - Ibid. 145 - Ibid. 146 - Ibid. 147 - Ibid. - -

Any person who has taken the name of a third party in circumstances which led or could have led to the entry of a conviction in the criminal record of that third party shall be punished by imprisonment of six months to five years, without prejudice to proceedings to be brought for the crime of forgery, if appropriate. The same p… Show more

In all cases provided for in this section, the trial court may order, at the expense of the convicted person, either the full insertion or insertion by extract of its decision in the newspapers that it designates, or posting in the places that it indicates. The same court shall order, where appropriate, that mention of the judgm… Show more

Any person engaged in the profession of business agent or legal or tax adviser who causes or allows his status as honorary magistrate or former lawyer, honorary official or former official, or a military rank, to appear on any prospectus, advertisements, leaflets, publicity, plaques, letterheads and, in general, on any document or writing whatsoever used in the context of his activity, shall be punished by a fine of 200148 to 5.000 dirhams.

The founders, directors or managers of a company or establishment with a commercial, industrial or financial object who have caused or allowed the name of a member of the Government or a member of an assembly to appear, with 148 - Ibid. 149 - Ibid. - - mention of his status, in any advertising made in the interest of the enterpr… Show more

The founders, directors or managers of a company or establishment with a commercial, industrial or financial object who have caused or allowed the name of a former member of the Government, a magistrate or former magistrate, an official or former official or a high dignitary to appear, with mention of his status, in any advertis… Show more

Any person who intentionally causes the death of another is guilty of murder and shall be punished by perpetual imprisonment. However, murder shall be punished by death: When it has preceded, accompanied or followed another crime; When its purpose has been either to prepare, facilitate or execute another crime or offence, or to favour the escape or ensure the impunity of the perpetrators or accomplices of that crime or offence.

Murder committed with premeditation or ambush is classified as assassination and shall be punished by death. - -

Premeditation consists in the design, formed before the act, to attempt against the person of a specific individual, or even of the person who will be found or encountered, even if that design should depend on some circumstance or condition.

Ambush consists in waiting for a longer or shorter time, in one or various places, for an individual, either to put him to death or to commit acts of violence upon him.

Any person who intentionally causes the death of his father, his mother or any other ascendant is guilty of parricide and shall be punished by death.

Any person who intentionally causes the death of a newborn child is guilty of infanticide and shall be punished, according to the distinctions provided for in Articles 392 and 393, by the penalties laid down in those articles. However, the mother, as principal perpetrator or accomplice in the murder or assassination of her newbo… Show more

Any person who attempts the life of a person by the effect of substances capable of causing death more or less promptly, in whatever manner these substances may have been employed or administered, and whatever the consequences may have been, is guilty of poisoning and shall be punished by death.

Any person who, for the execution of an act classified as a crime, employs torture or acts of barbarity, shall be punished by death. - -

Any person who voluntarily inflicts wounds or strikes another or commits any other violence or assault, whether they have caused neither illness nor incapacity, or whether they have caused illness or incapacity for personal work not exceeding twenty days, shall be punished by imprisonment of one month to one year and a fine of 2… Show more

Where the wounds or strikes or other violence or assault have caused an incapacity exceeding twenty days, the penalty shall be imprisonment of one to three years and a fine of 200152 to 1.000 dirhams. Where there has been premeditation or ambush or use of a weapon, the penalty shall be imprisonment of two to five years and a fin… Show more

Where wounds or blows or other violence or assault have caused mutilation, amputation or deprivation of the use of a limb, blindness, loss of an eye or any other permanent infirmities, the penalty is reclusion for five to ten years. Where there has been premeditation or ambush, or use of a weapon, the penalty is reclusion for ten to twenty years. 150 - Ibid. 151 - Ibid. 152 - Ibid. - -

Where wounds or blows or other violence or assault, voluntarily inflicted but without intent to cause death, have nevertheless caused it, the penalty is reclusion for ten to twenty years. Where there has been premeditation or ambush or use of a weapon, the penalty is perpetual reclusion.

Anyone who voluntarily strikes or wounds a woman because of her sex, or a pregnant woman where her pregnancy is apparent or known to the perpetrator, or a woman in a situation of disability or known for her weak mental capacities, one of the ascendants, a kafil, a spouse, a fiancé, a guardian or a person having authority over hi… Show more

Anyone who participates in a brawl, rebellion or seditious assembly in the course of which violence is committed causing death under the conditions provided for in article 403 is punished by imprisonment for one to five years unless he incurs a more severe penalty as the perpetrator of that violence. The leaders, perpetrators, i… Show more