The struggle against the heap of illegal assets finds in the subject of confiscation the primary and main tool of intervention: with its qualities of a structurally changeable and a finalistically eclectic concept, the confiscation takes on some chameleonic traits that allow it to adapt to many different purposes, both on the level of prevention and repression. The confiscation, in this regard, is the most emblematic manifestation of that specific model of “modern” criminal law, voted for the contrastive efficiency, to which the criminal policy of the last few years seems to tend to. The present contribution aims to outline the basics coordinates to orient the interpreter within the vast, complex and actual ablative panorama.
This paper examines a recent judgment by the Italian Constitutional Court as to the extent of the principle of non-retroactivity of criminal laws, as applied to laws that de-criminalise previous criminal offences by transforming them into mere administrative offences. The author discusses, in particular, whether the normative framework of this whole discussion should be found in Article 25 (2) of the Italian Constitution or, rather, in Article 7 ECHR, to which Article 117 (1) of the Italian Constitution implicitly refers.
While rejecting the issue of the constitutionality of Article 1 of Law no. 689/1981 insofar as it does not provide for the applicability of the principle of retroactivity of the most favourable supervening regulation for administrative sanctions, Constitutional Court decision no. 193 dated 20 July 2016 seems nevertheless to set the stage for definitively overcoming such serious limitation of the aforementioned Law no. 689/1981. After having analysed this decision and the context within which it is entered, this article will highlight the reasons why said decision should be regarded as a warning to the Legislator, which has now the ultimate responsibility of fixing such error in our administrative sanction system.
This introduction presents some forms of interaction between criminal law and procedure from the international, European and domestic perspective analysed in the following essays published in this issue, which constitute the conference proceedings of the 6th Training Course on Criminal Law and Procedure "Giuliano Vassalli" for PhD Candidates organized by the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences (ISISC) in Noto, 18-20 September 2015.
Starting from the debate on the doubling of the sanctions between criminal and regulatory proceedings, the paper analyses whether the typical guarantees of criminal jurisdiction granted in the finding of the fact must be granted in non-criminal proceedings aimed to the application of sanctions as well. This must be referred to the adversarial principle both as a method of participation in the gathering of evidence – able to ensure the highest standard of quality in the finding of the facts – and as a fundamental part of the defendant’s right of defence. The paper evaluates if the application of the principle in regulatory proceedings (such as the ones conducted by Bank of Italy or CONSOB, for instance) must be regarded as mandatory, in the light of the law provided both by internal norms of constitutional rank and by international obligations deriving from the European Convention of Human Rights. Indeed, if the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court itself recognizes that a sanction applied at the end of a non-criminal proceeding can have a substantial criminal nature, the method for the finding of the fact in non-criminal proceedings cannot be less guaranteed than in the criminal ones.
Increasingly, analysing criminal law requires taking into account the expansion of several sectors of punitive administrative law. The interaction of these different legal areas generates such a complexity that this cannot conceivably be solved only through an extensive application of the prohibition of bis in idem. On the contrary, in order to comply with the guarantees provided for by Article 6 of the ECHR, it is impelling to establish common standards for the whole area of punitive law, and especially for the investigation phases. Against this background, the paper deals with the rights of the defence in the European Union legal system(s), focusing particularly on the guarantees provided in the administrative proceedings carried out by OLAF and DG-COMP, and on the impact of the recent Directive on the strengthening of certain aspects of the presumption of innocence.
Il progressivo recepimento nell’ordinamento interno della nozione di “pena” elaborata dalla Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo non può che incidere anche sull’attuazione della riforma del sistema sanzionatorio delineata nella legge delega n. 67/2014. In particolare, nell’ottica di una diversificazione delle strategie sanzionatorie, attraverso una valorizzazione delle sanzioni amministrative e di quelle etichettate come “civili”, non pare comunque consentito un arretramento di determinate garanzie collegate al principio di colpevolezza, valevoli rispetto ad ogni manifestazione della potestà punitiva.
Con la sentenza n. 49/2015 la Corte costituzionale italiana è tornata sul rapporto fra diritto interno e CEDU. Il seguente contributo cercherà di contestualizzare questa decisione in un quadro più ampio di diritto comparato, grazie alla nozione di “disobbedienza funzionale”.
La Corte costituzionale, nella sentenza n. 49/2015, pur dichiarando inammissibile la questione di legittimità della confisca senza condanna, ha recepito l’esigenza di pienezza dell’accertamento dei presupposti della responsabilità. A ciò consegue l’esigenza di un contraddittorio processuale pieno. Senza risposta è rimasta l’eccezione in malam partem sollevata dalla Corte di cassazione, che ha invocato (capovolgendone il senso) una serie di principi costituzionali come controlimiti rispetto a garanzie liberali poste dalla CEDU.
L’A. commenta con favore la sentenza n. 49 del 2015 della Corte costituzionale, in tema di confisca dei beni oggetto di lottizzazione abusiva. Tale pronuncia è reputata condivisibile, specie per aver introdotto la nozione di giurisprudenza europea consolidata, che l’A. accosta a quella di diritto vivente. Sono sottolineati i margini di dubbio che la sentenza ha lasciato volutamente aperti, sia con riguardo alla facoltà del giudice comune di sollevare questione di costituzionalità sulla base di un diritto europeo non ancora consolidato, sia con riferimento ai poteri processuali di accertamento dei presupposti per confiscare un bene oggetto di lottizzazione abusiva. Viene peraltro enfatizzato l’obbligo per il giudice penale di accertare la colpevolezza al di là di ogni ragionevole dubbio, quale condizione preliminare ai fini della legittimità della confisca urbanistica.