CYIL vol. 8 (2017)

MICHAL PETR

CYIL 8 ȍ2017Ȏ

TWICE ABOUT NE BIS IN IDEM : CONFLICTING APPROACH OF EUROPEAN COURTS TO THE SAME PRINCIPLE Michal Petr *

Abstract: The ne bis in idem principle is an unquestionable basis of criminal law, its interpretation, in particular what is to be understood by “idem”, may nonetheless be fiendishly complicated. The European Court of Human Rights finally settled on the “identity of facts” theory, according to which only the conduct in question is relevant, not its legal qualification. This is in line with the “Schengen” jurisprudence of Court of Justice of the European Union, which was in time accepted in most of the areas of EU law. The only area of law avoiding this convergence was competition law, in which the CJ EU consistently holds that the idem is defined by the unity of conduct, offender and the legal interest protected, thus keeping the legal element in place. The CJ EU had an opportunity to revisit its jurisprudence in the Toshiba case; unfortunately, it did not expressly endorse the ECtHR case law, even though AG Kokott suggested a way to do so in her opinion. Resumé: Princip ne bis in idem představuje nesporně základní zásadu trestního práva, její výklad, zejména pokud jde o „idem“, je však extrémně obtížný. Judikatura Evropského sou- du pro lidská práva se ustálila na teorii „skutkové jednoty“, podle které je relevantní toliko posuzované jednání, nikoli jeho právní kvalifikace. To je v souladu se „Schengenskou“ judi- katurou Soudního dvora Evropské unie, která postupně pronikla do většiny oblastí unijního práva. Jedinou výjimku přestavuje soutěžní právo, ve kterém Soudní dvůr setrvale uvádí, že idem je definováno jednotou jednání, pachatele a chráněného právního zájmu, čímž pone- chává ve hře právní kvalifikaci. Soudní dvůr měl příležitost přehodnotit svou praxi ve věci Toshiba; bohužel však přístup ESLP výslovně nepřijal, byť generální advokátka Kokott na- bídla ve svém stanovisku cestu, jak toho dosáhnout. Key words: competition law; convergence of jurisprudence; criminal law; European Court of Human Rights; ne bis in idem. On the Author: JUDr. Michal Petr, Ph.D. , is a senior researcher at the Faculty of Law at the Palacky University in Olomouc. He specializes in economic aspects of EU integration, in particular competition law and public procurement, and selected issues of due process. For 15 years, he was working at the Office for the Protection of Competition, in 2010–2015 as its vice-chairman. The ne bis in idem principle constitutes a fundamental procedural guarantee in (quasi) criminal proceedings. Its interpretation by the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union seemed to be converging, but for the area of competition law, where the Court of Justice arguably adopted an approach inconsistent with the jurisprudence not only of the Court of Human Rights, but also of its own. In this Article, we are going to explore the concept of ne bis in idem and discuss whether the latest

* This article was drafted with support of the grant project of the Czech Science Foundation “ Vztah českého a unijního soutěžního práva “ [The Relationship Between Czech and EU Competition Law], grant no. GA16-14146S.

210