Decision of the Court of Terni 12 June 2015

In its decision on the case Grande Stevens v. Italy (2014), the European Court of Human Rights ruled that certain administrative sanctions provided under Italian legislation are, substantially, comparable to penal sanctions, at the point that the fact of imposing sanctions of the two kind (the administrative one and the penal one) upon a same person and for the same facts represents a violation of the fair trial principle and the ne bis in idem principle (Articles 6 of the ECHR and 4 of the 7th Protocol to the ECHR, respectively). The jurisprudence of the EU Court of Justice concerning Article 50 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well the relevant jurisprudence of Italian Court of Cassation are not completely in line with the ruling of the Strasbourg Court. This uncertainty explains why some Italian judges asked the Constitutional Court to say whether or not the relevant legislation is consistent with Italy’s international obligations as required by Article 117.1 of Constitution. For the Tribunal of Terni any such referral to the Constitutional Court was unnecessary, because the duty of national court to comply with the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in accordance with Article 46 of the ECHR, must prevail under any circumstances. On these grounds, the Tribunal ordered to not prosecute, criminally, for the offense of failure to pay VAT a person who had been already sanctioned by an administrative court for this same illicit conduct.