There are many ways of reading the judgment issued by the December last (C-42/17! MAS ) in response to the Constitutional Court’s order no. 24 of 2017 relating to the Taricco case. The first and most obvious of these! the one that immediately attracted the attention of most commentators!
Was the one related to the alleged violation of the counter-limits and on this the Court of Justice has shown a shared and not entirely predictable openness towards the arguments wisely What Luxembourg employed by the Constitutional Court (see on this the comment by Antonio Ruggeri in our Magazine ).
By enhancing some passages that remained in the background
The first Taricco judgment (paragraphs 53 and 55)! the Court of Justice today specifies that the principle of legality phone number list precludes the obligation to disapply. The national legislation on the limitation period that prevents the imposition of effective criminal sanctions in a considerable number of cases of serious fraud affecting the financial interests of the Union from being full and unconditional. In fact! before disapplying.
The internal rules on the limitation period in the cases in question! the Italian judge is required to ascertain whether such disapplication entails. A “breach of the principle of legality of crimes and penalties due to the insufficient certainty of. The applicable law! or the retroactive application of legislation that imposes a more severe regime of punishability than that in force at the time of the commission of the crime”.
Alongside these counter-limits
There is however a second level of reading of the judgment! from which one can derive apparently contrasting indications and caseno email list which go in the direction of a substantial confirmation of. The structure of the Taricco I judgment! at least in the sense of considering that the principles contained therein – once the disagreement with the Constitutional Court has been generally resolved – must in any case be applied in the majority of cases!
Thus reducing the evoked conflict with the principle of legality to essentially residual eventualities. with lord neuberger! lady hale! Suffice it to think of the fact that the Court of Justice refers in several places to the “national judge. The task of verifying the existence of a conflict betwee he obligation of non-application and compliance with the principle of legality!Court of Justice
Without however being able to deduce whether in this case reference is made to. The Constitutional Court as the referring judge or (as instead it seems necessary to believe) to all judges.
