Supreme Court: dog identification card is a public act, forgery is punishable under criminal law

The card identifying the dog is a public deed, thus triggering the offence offorgery for those who lie about the information given: from the pedigree to the microchip. Far from being a private writing or a simple health certification devoid of autonomous public relevance, the 'paper' with the dog's information is a public act, as it documents, within the framework of an administrative procedure governed by public law, facts that the law entrusts to the identifying veterinary surgeon to perform and certify, preparatory to the subsequent registration in the regional dog registry. The Court of Cassation, starting from this principle, confirms theconvictionof a veterinary surgeon for forgery in public deed, committed in conspiracy with breeders.

Underlying the verdict was a team game with the ultimate aim of frauding the tax authorities. The breeders promoted the online sales of dogs, asking customers to send in photos of their identity documents in advance. At the kennel appointment, buyers paid for the puppyin cash, without receiving receipts or invoices. The forms, prepared by the defendant veterinary surgeon, falsely stated that the microchip, though inoculated earlier, had been inserted by the professionalat the time of purchase, while the purchaser was indicated as the original owner of the animal.

At the same time as delivering the dog, the sellers issued the customer with a pre-filled identification card, which contained the purchaser's data, the microchip die applied and, at the bottom, the stamp and signature of the vet, despite the fact that hardly anyone had ever met him or her in person. What is more, the form falsely attested both the personal intervention of the vet in the identification of the dog and the owner, and the microchip affixed by him, as if these events had taken place or occurred in his presence, when he had had no direct contact with the actual purchasers of the animal. The indicationof the origin of the dog was also false, since the first and immediate owners were indicated as the final purchasers and not the breeders. A mechanism that allowed systematictax evasion in favour of the breeders, who could collect the proceeds of the sales totally 'off the books', evading sales tax.

But trouble with the tax authorities aside - of which there is no news - the conviction comes for forgery of a public act. For the judges, in fact, the defence's argument, according to which the free-lance veterinary surgeon is not a public official, as he does not exercise authoritative or certifying powers, but only the exerciser of a service of public necessity, is completely unfounded. Consequently, the canine identification card would not be a public act but a merely recognitive document or, at most, an administrative attestation, while the only person responsible for entering and updating the data in the computerised archive would remain the Veterinary Service of the ASL.

The Supreme Court's conclusion is different. The judges of legitimacy recall, in fact, that the freelance veterinary surgeon is authorised to identify and therefore exercises 'a segment of public administrative function characterised bycertifying powers'. He documents, in fact, in a 'form intended to constitute the necessary prerequisite of the registry registration legally relevant facts of the identification process: the presentation of the subject qualified as owner or keeper,' reads the judgement, 'the registration of his generality, the reporting of the animal, the contextual application of the microchip and the association between animal and identification code'.