A non-satisfactory regulation of the statutes of limitations (hereinafter SOL) represents a major obstacle in contrasting corruption-related offences. The purpose of this report is to analyse different legal framework to identify how weak regulations affect the efforts made to contrast corruption, with a specific focus on the damage that may ensue to the protection of EU financial interests.
To this end, this report makes a comparison between the legal framework of six different Member States: researchers focusing on Italy, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria, Portugal and Romania present the efficiencies and deficiencies of the different approaches adopted in these countries.
In addition, based on the European Court of Justice judgement in Taricco, this report analyses national experts’ opinions and possible scenarios which might arise at country level.
A major conclusion of this report is that there is a considerable diversity of regulations, which reflects the identification of statutes of limitation “as problematic” only in limited countries though somehow seems to affect, at least indirectly, all the countries involved in this study.
A first result is that the (short) length of limitation periods is not the main criticisable factor; other relevant aspects are more important, such as the establishment of absolute statutes of limitation, the scarceness of causes for suspension or interruption, the expectable delays in transnational cases, the “ways out” or clauses granted to specific individuals.
Statutes of limitation are often related to other issues which are perceived as more detrimental to the entire national system, such as the lack of resources to detect and prosecute corruption-related crimes, the length of criminal justice proceedings or the lack of impartiality in the laws that create privileges for specific categories of citizens.
Fonte: https://www.transparency.it/impact-of-statutes-of-limitations-in-corruption-cases-affecting-eu-financial-interests/
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento