The principle of ne bis in idem (no double jeopardy) is a fundamental legal safeguard recognized both in Italian law (Article 649 Italian crimional procedure code ) and European law. It prevents an individual from being prosecuted twice for the same offense. Both Italian and European legal systems have evolved towards a more comprehensive application of ne bis in idem, recognizing that procedural integrity and mutual recognition of judicial decisions are essential in transnational justice.
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The principle of ne bis in idem in in Italian and European context
As is well known, the prohibition of a second trial for the same exact fact1 is a fundamental principle recognized both by our internal Italian legal system in art. 649 c.p.p.2, and by the acquis communautaire.
In fact, from the very wording of art. 54 of the Convention applying the Schengen Agreement (ratified with law 388/1993; hereinafter, CAAS 3) it follows that no one can be subjected to criminal proceedings in a member state for the same facts for which they have already been “judged with a definitive sentence” in another member state.
The extension of this principle has been the subject of conflicting interpretations, both at a Italian national and European level.
Italian ne bis in idem
As is well known, Article 696 of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure establishes the so-called principle of subsidiarity, according to which, in matters of relations with foreign jurisdictional authorities, customary and agreed sources prevail over the entire legislation, which is recognized as having only an integrative and supplementary value; and again, in the provision contained in art. 739 c.p.p. according to which, if a foreign sentence has been recognized in Italy for the purposes of its execution, in our state no new criminal proceedings can be initiated against the subject already convicted abroad for the same act “even if this is considered differently for the title, the degree or the circumstances”, with the literal formulation that clearly evokes art. 649 c.p.p. As is intuitive, the consequent preclusion is an expression of the prohibition of the international principle of ne bis in idem, which is a value capable of inspiring completely new institutions in the Italian legal tradition, since it excludes that a person convicted with a recognized sentence can be extradited abroad or subjected to criminal proceedings for the same same act even if qualified differently as “closing the system as a bulwark against possible abuses” 4.
In Italy, the application of the prohibition of bis in idem has long been strictly subject to the existence of jurisdictional decisions characterized by the requirement of irrevocability. Even recently it has been reiterated that the existence of an irrevocable sentence constitutes a mandatory and binding condition for the application of art. 649 (Cass., Sez. III, February 23, 2005, P.M. in proc. Massa, rv. 230872)5.
The compactness of this guideline suffered an initial crack when it was held that, while it is true that the text of art. 649 c.p.p. links the prohibition of a second trial to the pronouncement of a sentence or penal decree that has become irrevocable, this does not mean, however, that until an irrevocable sentence has been pronounced, several criminal proceedings can legitimately be carried out against the same person and for the same fact, since art. 649, like the rules on positive conflicts of jurisdiction and art. 669, expresses “a constant system orientation, dictated to avoid duplicity of decisions” and a “general principle of ne bis in idem which tends above all to avoid that for the same offense, multiple proceedings take place and multiple measures are issued, each independent of the other” (Cass. Section V, July 10, 1995, Pandolfo, in Cass. pen., 1996, 2611, rv. 202653)6.
The decision just mentioned has given rise to a consistent line of interpretation uniformly aimed at attributing to art. 649 a broader application than that which transpires from the literal wording, since the provision is closely related to the general principle of procedural law that prohibits the duplication of proceedings against the same person for the same offense (Cass., Sec. VI, February 11, 1999, Siragusa, rv. 212864; Section VI, February 25, 2002, P.G. in proc. Sulsenti; Sec. I, April 30, 2003, Morteo, rv. 225004; Sec. VI, November 18, 2004, Fontana, rv. 230760; Sec. III, April 5, 2005, P.G. in proc. Chiarolini) 7.
The same constitutional jurisprudence has indicated the possibility of considering the existence of a “fuller meaning of the ne bis in idem principle”, noting how the principle referred to in art. 529 c.p.p. can be extended to “include all cases in which criminal proceedings could not have been brought for the same offense in separate proceedings because they had already begun in another”8.
This line of interpretation was accepted with the innovative sentence of the Criminal Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the admissibility of the pronouncement of not having to proceed due to the impracticability of the criminal action in cases of litispendence (Criminal Supreme Court, Sect. U, June 28 – September 28, 2005, n. 34655, also for the above findings), deeming admissible the pronouncement of a sentence of not having to proceed due to the unfeasibility of criminal proceedings not through the direct application of the provision of art. 649 c.p. p., but precisely by virtue of a principle more extensive – of which this norm is an expression – which, even in the absence of an irrevocable provision, “makes the duplication of the same process incompatible with the founding structures of the procedural system and allows its removal with the use of remedies that can be identified by the system”.
Note that according to a now consolidated line of jurisprudence, and recalled in the aforementioned sentence of the United Sections of the Criminal Cassation n. 34655/05, the preclusion of the “ne bis in idem” justifies the declaration of the impossibility of criminal prosecution even in the presence of decision-making measures other than those indicated in art. 649 c.p. p., such as the dismissal followed by the reopening of the investigation by the same prosecutor without the authorization of the judge prescribed by art. 414 (Constitutional Court, January 19, 1995, n. 27, cited in note 12; Court of Cassation, Joint Div. Un., March 22, 2000, Finocchiaro, rv. 216004) and the sentence of no case to answer in the absence of the revocation order pursuant to art. 434 (Constitutional Court, January 19, 1995, n. 27, cit., and June 17, 1997, n. 206.; Cass., Un. Sect., February 23, 2000, Romeo, rv. 215411).
In short: “(…) art. 649 constitutes a single, specific point of emergence of the ne bis in idem principle, which permeates the entire legal system giving life to a precise prohibition of the repetition of proceedings and decisions on the identical regiudicanda, in harmony with the requirements of rationality and functionality inherent in the system. This prohibition must therefore be considered a general principle of the legal system from which, in accordance with the second paragraph of Article 12 of the Preliminary Provisions, the judge cannot disregard as a necessary referent of logical-systematic interpretation.” 9
Best doctrine 10 has noted in this regard how in our procedural system there is a general principle of protection aimed at safeguarding the individual from the risks connected to the possibility of a duplication of criminal proceedings against him for the same offense, as also recognized by the sentence 34655/05 SS.UU. cited: this principle would find various positive recognitions, diversified according to the “intensity of the preclusive effect”, citing different examples of manifestation of the aforementioned principle outside the notion of res judicata, such as
- the rulings that there is no need to proceed in the absence of a condition for admissibility until such a condition arises (regardless of the possibility of appealing against this ruling!)
- the ruling that there is no need to proceed, not revoked,
- the decree or order to dismiss the case in the absence of authorization to reopen the investigation,
- the so-called ne bis in idem precautionary measure following precautionary orders terminating the appeals,
- orders of the supervisory magistrate/enforcement judge
- ..
Therefore, if it is undeniable that the provisions of art. 649 c.p.p. codify a particular form of the principle, the so-called ne bis in idem res judicata, which expresses the maximum preclusive effect, “this does not exclude that there may be a ne bis in idem deriving from proceedings other than ‘irrevocable’ sentences” 11.
The United Sections of this Court have specified that the silence of the legislator, in itself, has no conclusive value, in the sense that it is not equivalent to a certain exclusion rule, for the simple, but evident, reason that in the reconstruction of the real scope of a law the omitted fact is neither affirmed nor excluded and that, given the non-univocal value of that silence, the interpreter's inescapable task is to attribute, case by case, to the omitted mention of the fact the meaning most consistent with the ratio legis, with the regulatory context outlined by the system and with the interests protected and the aims effectively pursued (Cass., Sez. Un., February 25, 1998, Gerina et al., rv. 210199).
Having identified the coordinates of the hermeneutic operation, it must be emphasized that from the jurisprudence that gave rise to the approach favorable to an extensive reading of art. 649 c.p.p. it is clear that the declaration of the impossibility of criminal prosecution, even in the absence of an irrevocable decision, was justified not through the direct application of the aforementioned provision, whose regulatory configuration is traced within very precise and delimited boundaries, but by leveraging a principle that transcends it and is placed upstream of it, with art. 649 corresponding to one of the multiple specifications of a general directive to which the entire procedural system conforms. In other words, the intention was to signify that art. 649 constitutes a single, specific point of emergence of the ne bis in idem principle, which permeates the entire legal system giving life to a precise prohibition of the repetition of proceedings and decisions on the identical regiudicanda, in harmony with the requirements of rationality and functionality inherent in the system. This prohibition must therefore be considered a general principle of the legal system from which, in accordance with the second paragraph of Article 12 of the Preliminary Provisions, the judge cannot ignore it as a necessary reference for logical-systematic interpretation.
European ne bis in idem
In Europe too, the same line of interpretation is by no means unknown, albeit with a different meaning: on February 11, 2003, in its judgment no. 187, the EC Court of Justice ruled that “the principle of ‘ne bis in idem’, enshrined in Article 54 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of June 14, 1985, between the governments of the States of the Benelux Economic Union, the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders, signed in Schengen on June 19, 1990, also applies in the context of procedures for the termination of criminal proceedings, under which the public prosecutor of a member state, without the intervention of a judge, closes criminal proceedings initiated in that state after the defendant has fulfilled certain obligations and, in particular, paid a specified sum of money, as determined by the public prosecutor” (Gozutok et al., in Foro it. 2003, IV, 426).
Again: “Article 54 of the Convention applying the Schengen Agreement aims to prevent a person from being subject to criminal proceedings for the same acts on the territory of several Member States due to the fact that he is exercising his right to free movement. Article 54 also applies in the context of procedures for the extinction of criminal proceedings (such as following a plea bargain or in any case an agreement with the public prosecutor) by virtue of which the public prosecutor of a Member State, without the involvement of a court, closes criminal proceedings brought in that State after the accused has fulfilled certain obligations, in particular has paid a sum of money determined by the public prosecutor” (EC Court of Justice, February 11, 2003, no. 187; Huseiyn and others, in Cass. pen. 2003, 1688 note by Selvaggi, and in Riv. dir. internaz. priv. e proc. 2003, 553)12.
The principles adopted at a national level on the extension of the ne bis in idem principle to lis pendens, together with those adopted at a European level on the non-necessity of a “final judgment”, would merit renewed reflection on the practical scope of the principle13.
Within the common area of freedom, security and justice, it seems inevitable that the provisions of the CAAS will have to be interpreted extensively, broadening the scope of the ne bis in idem principle, which is aimed at avoiding, on the one hand, a person already judged for the same crime in another Member State being tried in a State of the Union, on the other hand, the phenomenon of lis pendens, i.e. the conflict between jurisdictions proceeding against the same person for the same act before the final judgment is formed14.
The need to expand the boundaries of the prohibition of bis in idem is based on the principle of mutual trust between EU member states and on the principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions, already affirmed in numerous recent EU acts (circulation of evidence; non-custodial sanctions; mutual assistance in criminal matters, etc.). The rationale for a hermeneutic evaluation, which in some respects can be considered bold, considering that it extensively interprets the literal meaning of the norm, finds its justification in the need to avoid the duplication of decisions and rulings that conflict with each other15 16.
Now, it should be noted that, a procedure by which the public prosecutor, legitimized to administer justice by the competent national legal system, decides to close the criminal proceedings against the accused due to the lack of substance of the report of the crime, must be considered “final”, for logical and systematic reasons (not only for procedural economy) involving the system of criminal justice administration at a European level.
Therefore, it seems clear that a broader scope of application than that which transpires from the literal wording of art. 54 of the CAAS appears to be more in line with the system of collaboration and judicial assistance between EU member states that is being established, aimed at ensuring that, with a view to the necessary implementation of a cross-border justice system, there are no repetitions of proceedings and/or decisions on the same case.
The principle of ne bis in idem, which, as has been repeatedly emphasized, aims to prevent a person from being subject to criminal proceedings for the same facts in the territory of several Member States due to the fact that they are exercising their right to free movement, must also apply to dismissals, according to its very rationale. In fact, the effects of such a procedure, in the absence of an express indication to the contrary in Article 54, should be considered sufficient to allow the application of the principle of ne bis in idem provided for by this provision, even if the procedure itself does not involve the intervention of any judge and the decision adopted as a result of the procedure does not take the form of a judgment.
Moreover, no provision of Title VI of the Treaty on European Union, relating to police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, nor of the Schengen Agreement or the Convention implementing the latter, makes the application of art. 54 to the harmonization or, at least, to the approximation of the criminal laws of the Member States in the area of procedures for the exercise/termination of criminal proceedings.
Finally, the principle of ne bis in idem necessarily implies that there is mutual trust between Member States with regard to their respective criminal justice systems and that each of them accepts the application of the criminal law in force in the other Member States, even when recourse to their own national law would lead to different solutions. If it were otherwise, there would be no justification for establishing a system for the administration of criminal justice at the European level.
Footnotes:
1 In the case in question, an Austrian citizen had been accused of a crime committed against a German citizen on Italian territory: two proceedings had been opened for the same crime (since all the constituent elements of the crime were the same: conduct, event, causal link), one German and one Italian. However, while the suspect had been the recipient of a dismissal order in the German proceedings pursuant to § 170/2 of the German penal code, in Italy he was notified of the conclusion of the preliminary investigations.
2 A very recent ruling by the Court of Cassation followed a minority opinion (see Criminal Cassation Court, section V, July 10, 1995) that expressed itself in the sense of an extensive interpretation of the dictates of art. 649 c.p.p. (Code of Criminal Procedure). The Court of Cassation deemed the provision of art. 649 c.p.p. applicable even in the case of a sentence that is not yet definitive, going beyond the literal meaning of the norm and formulating the principle of law as follows: "Situations of lis pendens, not attributable to the context of conflicts of jurisdiction referred to in art. 28 c.p.p., must be resolved by declaring in the second trial, even in the absence of an irrevocable sentence, that criminal proceedings cannot be brought in application of the preclusion based on the general principle of ne bis in idem, provided that the two trials have as their object the same act attributed to the same person, have been initiated by the same public prosecutor's office and have been referred, even if at different stages or levels, to the cognizance of judges of the same judicial seat” (United Sections of the Court of Cassation, no. 34655, September 29, 2005).
3 Art. 54 states that “a person whose trial has been finally disposed of in one Contracting Party may not be subjected to criminal proceedings in respect of the same facts in another Contracting Party, provided that, where the person has been convicted, the sentence has been served or is currently being served or may no longer be executed according to the law of the sentencing Contracting Party”. Cf. also art. 55 on any reservations made.
4 The above and the quote from GAITO are taken from S. Astarita, Ne bis in idem tra rimedi sanzionatori interni e spirito europeo, 147, in AA.VV. (curr. A. Gaito), Procedura penale e garanzie europee Utet, Milan 2008.
5 In a similar interpretative context, the question of constitutional legitimacy of the aforementioned provision was declared manifestly unfounded, with reference to articles 3, 24 and 97 of the Constitution, in the part in which it foresees the prohibition of a second trial only in the case of a sentence that has become final (Cass., Sez. III, January 23, 1996, Castellano, rv. 207105).
6 This sentence was followed by Cass., VI, November 18, 2004, F., CED Cass. 230760, Cass., VI, February 25, 2002, Sulsenti, in Cass. pen., 2003, 3861, Cass., VI, February 11, 1999, Siragusa, ibid., 2000, 399, but also, for the case law on the merits, GIP Milan, February 16, 1999, in Foro ambr., 1999, 3300: all these rulings have in particular noted the impossibility, pending an appeal, of starting new criminal proceedings against the same person and the same offense, by issuing a coercive order. See also below in the text.
7 See note 10.
8 Constitutional Court, sentence 318/2001, which states the following: “it is not up to this Court to indicate the procedural norm to be applied to the case in question, nor to establish if, in the hypothesis of a precedent conviction for the same offense that has not yet become final, regard must be had to the provisions of Article 649 of the Code of Criminal Procedure or if, in accordance with a fuller meaning of the ne bis in idem principle, such that it includes the prohibition of subjecting the same person to criminal proceedings more than once for the same offense, Article 529 of the Code of Criminal Procedure should be applied, the applicability of which is not limited, as this Court has already clarified in sentence no. 27 of 1995, to cases of failure to meet the conditions for admissibility expressly listed in Title III of Book V of the Code of Criminal Procedure, but can reasonably be extended to include all cases in which criminal proceedings could not have been brought for the same offense in separate proceedings because they had already begun in another”.
10 Paolo Troisi, La nozione giurisprudenziale di litispendenza penale, in Diritto penale e processo, 6/2006, .p. 719 ff. See also Novella Galantini, Una nuova dimensione per il ne bis in idem internazionale, in Cass. pen., 2003, p. 3474 ff., which underlines the reasons why the ne bis in idem principle should constitute a generally recognized principle of international law.
11 Troisi, cit., 726.
12 On this subject, the following sentences are worth noting: sentence of February 11, 2003, C-187/01 and C 385/01, Gözütok and Bruegge, which states that “the principle of ne bis in idem, sanctioned by art. 54 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of June 14, 1985, between the governments of the States of the Benelux Economic Union, the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders, signed at Schengen on June 19, 1990, also applies in the context of procedures for the termination of prosecution, such as those at issue in the main proceedings, whereby the public prosecutor's office of a Member State closes, without the intervention of a judge, criminal proceedings brought in that State after the accused has fulfilled certain obligations and, in particular, has paid a certain sum of money, as determined by the public prosecutor'.
In other words, the definitive nature of the criminal proceedings was recognized in an extrajudicial decision made by a person other than a judicial authority, in that it implied an implicit decision of guilt on the merits. As was acutely observed by the commentators of the sentence: “in almost all of the penal systems of the Member States (the only exception is Greece), the term ‘settlement’ indicates a procedure in which, with prior authorization by law, the public prosecutor can renounce - and in some systems, without a court ruling - to continue with the criminal proceedings against an individual, after a sum of money has been paid to the public treasury or other conditions have been met; with the proviso, of course, that if the accused does not accept the proposal made to him, the judicial and sanctioning process will follow its ordinary course. This is a procedure that, despite its bilateral nature, is characterized by the fact that the State assumes a position of pre-eminence. However, this method of administering criminal justice does not apply to all categories of crime, but only to those for which the social condemnation is less severe and whose repression does not require the activation of the punitive apparatus of the State in all its intensity nor, consequently, the full application of the guarantees offered by the criminal process through the intervention of a judge. This characteristic means that the accused, without necessarily being subjected to legal proceedings, recognizes his guilt, explicitly or implicitly... The fact that the judge exercising jurisdictional power is absent from the transaction does not imply a “de-jurisdictionalization” such as to make the relative decision not respond to the criteria of art. 54 of the CAAS... The Court therefore affirmed that art. 54 of the CAAS applies to the penal transaction if and insofar as the latter constitutes a procedure through which the State exercises the ius puniendi; it implies the formulation of an implicit definitive judgment regarding the conduct of the accused ».
On the other hand, the decision of the ECJ of March 11, 2005 in case C-469/03, Filomeno Mario Miraglia, stated that “the ne bis in idem principle, sanctioned by art. 54 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of June 14, 1985 between the governments of the States of the Benelux Economic Union, the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders, signed in Schengen on June 19, 1990, does not apply to a decision by the judicial authorities of a Member State declaring a case closed after the Public Prosecutor has decided not to pursue the criminal proceedings on the sole ground that criminal proceedings have been initiated in another Member State against the same defendant and for the same acts, without any assessment of the merits».
And again, ECJ September 28, 2006 Case C-467/04, Francesco Gasparini, according to which “the ne bis in idem principle, enshrined in Article 54 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of June 14, 1985 between the governments of the States of the Benelux Economic Union, of the Federal Republic of Germany and of the French Republic on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders, signed on June 19, 1990, in Schengen, shall apply to a decision of a court of a Contracting State, made after criminal proceedings have been brought, by which the accused is acquitted finally because the prosecution of the offence is time-barred”.
We should also remember the ECJ sentence of September 28, 2006 C-150/05, Jean Leon Van Straaten, according to which: “the ne bis in idem principle, sanctioned in art. 54 of the aforementioned convention, is applied to a decision of the judicial authority of a contracting state with which an accused is definitively acquitted due to insufficient evidence”. And this on the basic assumption that: “without it being necessary to rule on the problem of whether an acquittal not based on an assessment of the merits can fall within the scope of this article, it must be stated that an acquittal due to insufficient evidence is based on such an assessment”.
For the purposes of this brief, the judgment of the ECJ of December 11, 2008, Case C-297/07 Klaus Bourquain, is relevant. In this judgment, it was affirmed that the “ne bis in idem” principle, enshrined in Article 54 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of June 14, 1985, between the Governments of the States of the Benelux Economic Union, the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders signed at Schengen (Luxembourg) on June 19, 1990, applies to criminal proceedings initiated in a Contracting State for acts for which the defendant has already been definitively judged in another Contracting State, even if, according to the law of the State in which he was convicted, the sentence imposed on him could never have been directly enforced due to procedural peculiarities such as those considered in the main proceedings (French trial in absentia whereby, if the person convicted in absentia appears before the sentence is extinguished due to prescription, said sentence is not carried out but new proceedings are initiated in the presence of the accused; moreover, in the case in question, an amnesty law had also been applied and the crime had become statute-barred; the second proceedings had been opened in Germany). The definitive nature is also affirmed by the ECJ in the case of a sentence pronounced in absentia, which allowed for the possibility of opening proceedings against the convicted person who had subsequently appeared in court. However, this possibility of opening proceedings is not considered to be a decisive factor by the European Court, in accordance with the undisguised objective of guaranteeing free movement within European territory, a right that would be demeaned or violated if the finality of a criminal decision were to be made dependent on the particularities of the various legal systems. Finally, the ECJ judgment of December 22, 2008, Case C-491/07 Vladimir Turansky. On that occasion it was stated that “the ne bis in idem principle, enshrined in Article 54 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of June 14, 1985, between the governments of the States of the Benelux Economic Union the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders, signed in Schengen (Luxembourg) on June 19, 1990, does not apply to a decision by which an authority of a Contracting State, after examining the merits of the case brought before it, orders, at a stage before charging a person suspected of having committed an offense, the suspension of the criminal proceedings, where the decision to suspend, according to the national law of that State, does not definitively extinguish the criminal proceedings and therefore does not constitute an obstacle to new criminal proceedings, for the same facts, in that State.”
This ruling emphasizes that the mere examination of the merits of the dispute does not in itself make the measure definitive, given that the question must have a certain stability, such as to constitute an obstacle to new criminal proceedings for the same facts in the State. This stability does not exist where the decision is made, as in the Turansky case, at a stage prior to the indictment of a person suspected of having committed a crime (in this specific case, the Slovak public prosecutor had initiated criminal proceedings for reported facts without, however, at the same time indicting a specific person).
13 It is worth recalling what has already been decided by the Court of Cassation with sentence no. 10426 of 2.2.2005 according to which: “The principle of international ne bis in idem, sanctioned by Law no. 388 of September 30, 1993, art. 54 of ratification of Italy's accession to the Schengen Agreement of June 14, 1985, operates, in domestic law, only in the presence of a sentence or a penal decree that has become irrevocable. It follows that the dismissal decree issued by the German judicial authority cannot be considered preclusive of the judgment in Italy for the same facts, which according to both legal systems, is in no way comparable to a sentence - understood as a provision that definitively establishes guilt or innocence - which is the only fact that prevents a second trial in another State regarding the same facts” (see also Criminal Cassation, section V, November 11, 2008, n. 7687. See also: Criminal Cassation no. 7385 of 2007, Criminal Cassation, section VI, September 22, 2004 no. 44830, Criminal Cassation, section I, June 3, 2004 no. 28299, Criminal Court no. 5617 of 1994, Criminal Court no. 1373 of 1993; in the same sense: Cass. pen., sez. V, February 2, 2005 n. 10426, Cass. pen., sez. VI, February 14, 1997 n. 626, Cass. pen. n. 567 of 1994).
14 For an innovative interpretation of the principle in question: see Court of Justice, February 11, 2003, already mentioned.
15 Regarding the constant enunciation of this principle, see Constitutional Court, no. 27 of 1995, Constitutional Court, 39 2002, Court of Cassation, section VI, February 11, 1999.
16 See also, on the subject of international agreements that codify the Ne bis in idem: VI Convention between the States participating in the NATO Treaty signed in London on June 19, 1954; articles 53, 54, 55 European Convention on the International Validity of Criminal Judgments of The Hague dd. May 28, 1970; the Seventh Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, concluded in Strasbourg on November 22, 1984; Council of Europe Resolution on the application of ne bis in idem in criminal matters of March 16, 1984; European Convention on ne bis in idem signed in Brussels on May 25, 1987; art. 50 of the Nice Charter of December 7, 2000; art. 3/1 n. 2 and art. 4/1 n. 3 second part; Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA of the Council of June 13, 2002 on the European arrest warrant.
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