Forged COVID certificates may be subject to several criminal provisions.
We are thinking in particular of forgery of documents (penalty of up to 5 years in prison) or, more likely, forgery of certificates (penalty of up to 3 years in prison). In fact, the offence of forgery under Article 251 of the Criminal Code presupposes a desire to obtain an economic advantage, which is not always the case with COVID certificates. On the contrary, the offence of forgery of certificates under Art. 252 of the Criminal Code is committed as soon as the forged certificate allows you to access services that you would not be able to access without it, but that do not necessarily give you an economic advantage.
However, in these two offences, only the creation of the false COVID certificate and its use are incriminated. In other words, simply obtaining the certificate is not. However, the prosecution authorities will try to argue that you induced (instigated) the creator of the false certificate to create it and may then charge you with its creation.
Finally, in some configurations, it is an offence to obtain the COVID certificate – even without using it afterwards. This is the case when the services to obtain it (vaccine, serological test, …) are reimbursed by the health insurance. This is an offence under Art. 92 KVG, punishable by a fine of up to 180 days.
