Decision of the Court of Brindisi, Criminal Section, 17 October 2014

The case concerned a detainee who had damaged some of the state-owned furnishings in prison, and for that reason had first received a disciplinary sanction, then a criminal penalty. The Court of Brindisi examined the question of whether this amounted to non respect of the ne bis in idem principle under Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the ECHR. In its decision of 2014 on the case Grande Stevens v. Italy, the European Court of Human Rights has clarified that the principle applies also in respect of proceedings and sanctions that are different in nature (e.g. administrative and criminal); moreover, the reservation to Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 made by Italy in order to not prejudice its own national legislation, was reputed by the Court too much general in content and, thus, inadmissible. The Court in Brindisi had to interpret Article 649 of the code of criminal procedure consistently with the relevant ruling of the European Court, a principle well established in Italian jurisprudence (decisions No. 348 and 349 of 2007 of the Constitutional Court). On these grounds, it declared the inadmissibility of the second (criminal) proceeding for its incompatibility with the ne bis in idem principle.