Order of the Court of Torino, V Criminal Section, 27 October 2014

Through this order, the Court in Torino sought a preliminary ruling to the EU Court of Justice to know whether the fact that Italian legislation provides that a person having failed to pay taxes, may be targeted, for this same fact, with a criminal sanction and an administrative sanction, is or not in contrast with EU law with regard to the ne bis in idem principle under Article 50 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the ECHR. The decision was grounded on the fact that the negative answer given to the question by Italian courts is not in line with the jurisprudence of the EU Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights (see, respectively,  Åklagaren v. Hans Åkerberg Franssonn (2013) and Grande Stevens et al. v. Italy (2014)).