Verso una nuova nozione di sanzione amministrativa in senso stretto: il contributo della Convenzione europea dei diritti dell'uomo

The article examines the concept of sanction as elaborated by the European Court of human rights in order to investigate whether and how this diverges from the traditional national one. In particular, since 1971 (so called Engel criteria) not only the Court of Strasbourg has looked at the very nature of the offence, as opposed to its legal classification under national law, but also has clarified that the aims of prevention and reparation are consistent with a punitive purpose and that, in any case, any sanction with a significant degree of severity is due to be classified as criminal, even if with an exclusive preventive purpose and in absence of a punitive nature. As a result, as already noted by the Constitutional Court in 2010 and 2014, an evolution seems necessary for the sake of consistency with ECHR obligations: any administrative sanction, regardless its legal classification and primary purpose, for the only reason of being serious, in principle triggers the application of all the guarantees set forth by the ECHR in the field of criminal sanctions. This conclusion calls for a substantial reinforcement of the protection of the citizens in relation to various forms of administrative reactions to infringements of laws