European Court of Human Rights

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 160

February 2013

Previti v. Italy - 1845/08

Decision 12.2.2013 [Section II]

Article 7

Article 7-1

Nullum crimen sine lege

Absence of retrospective effect of criminal law shortening limitation period: inadmissible

 

Facts - In 1996 the public prosecutor of Milan brought proceedings against the applicant on a charge of bribery. Those proceedings were discontinued in 2000. The prosecution appealed. In 2005 Parliament enacted a law which, among other things, reduced the statutory limitation period for the offence of bribery from fifteen to eight years. As the date on which the offence in question was committed could be fixed at 1992, the charges would thus have become time-barred in 2000. However, under a transitional provision, the applicant was unable to benefit from the changes to the limitation period as his case was pending before the Court of Cassation at the time the new law entered into force. In 2007 the applicant was convicted on remittal of the case. His last appeal on points of law was dismissed.

Law - Article 7: Under the Convention, provisions defining offences and the penalties for them were governed by specific rules on retrospectiveness, including the principle that more favourable criminal legislation should be applied retrospectively. However, as the Grand Chamber had confirmed in Scoppola v. Italy (no. 2), it was reasonable for domestic courts to apply the tempus regit actum principle with regard to procedural laws. In its Coëme and Others v. Belgium judgment, the Court had classified rules on limitation periods as procedural laws. Such rules did not define the offences or corresponding penalties and could be construed as merely laying down a prior condition for the examination of a case. Consequently, since the legislative amendment complained of by the applicant had concerned a procedural law, provided there was no arbitrariness, nothing in the Convention prevented the Italian legislature from regulating its application to proceedings that were pending at the time of its entry into force. The exception provided for by the transitional provision had been limited to pending appeal or cassation proceedings. The provision appeared neither unreasonable nor arbitrary. In those circumstances, no appearance of a violation of Article 7 of the Convention could be detected.

Conclusion: inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).

(See Scoppola v. Italy (no. 2) [GC], no. 10249/03, 17 September 2009, Information Note no. 122; and Coëme and Others v. Belgium, nos. 32492/96 et al., 22 June 2000, Information Note no. 19.

 

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