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Regulation (EU) No. 2016/679 (hereinafter the GDPR) has profoundly innovated the subject of personal data protection. Recital 149 of the Regulation states that «Member States should be able to lay down the rules on criminal penalties» for infringements of this Regulation, including for infringements of «national rules adopted pursuant to and within the limits» of this Regulation. This provision must be read in conjunction with Article 84.1, which declares that Member States shall lay down the «rules on other penalties applicable to infringements» of this Regulation («other» in the sense of additional to those already envisaged by European legislation), penalties which «shall be effective, proportionate and dissuasive». In the light of the European impetus, the Italian criminal legislation on privacy was significantly amended. There were many discussions but in the end the Italian legislator opted for a reform of the Data Protection Code (Italian Legislative Decree No. 196 dated 30 June 2003). However, as the doctrine has rightly observed, if some of the amendments are acceptable and of certain impact, the European solicitation could have represented an opportunity (which seems to have been lost) for a structural intervention of the criminal legislation in this specific and delicate sector. This contribution intends to reflect on the most relevant aspects of the changes made in a sector that moves between the provision of criminal sanctions and administrative sanctions (particularly afflictive) with repercussions - in terms of balance of the system - on the fundamental principle of ne bis in idem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Union Law had explicitly authorized the use of a double punishment (administrative and criminal) in the context of the fight against illegal conduct on the financial markets. Thus many facts and behaviours on the capital market have a double regulation, especially in the area of market abuse. For example, we have the misconduct of market manipulation punished with administrative (pecuniary) penalty and the market manipulation offense punished with criminal penalty. Criminal liability conditions are different from administrative liability but generating facts and behaviours are rigorously identical. Therefore acts of market manipulation are punished as misdemeanours (administrative procedure) when acts are committed without the form of guiltiness required by law to qualify them as offenses (criminal procedure). The question raised by European and Romanian regulations on financial market is the compatibility with or violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In order to ensure the integrity of markets and to enhance investor confidence in those markets, European law has created broad administrative offences, which punish the risk of harm to the market with severe, pecuniary and non-pecuniary penalties. Access to a subsequent court in administrative proceedings is an evasive guarantee that does not compensate the unfairness of the administrative procedure. ECHR case law concluded that market pressure and need for compliance in that field cannot prevail over international human rights obligations of States bound by the Convention (ECHR). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze the judgment of the European court for human rights made in the case of Muslija vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which Bosnia and Herzegovina is sentenced for violation of the article 4 of Protocol No. 7 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms which guarantees the application of the ne bis in idem principle. The authors provide special references on interpretation in case-law of the European Court for Human Rights when the sentence pronounced in a minor offense proceeding is considered as a criminal offense, when the offenses were the same (idem) and when there is dualism of the proceedings (bis). Since Bosnia and Herzegovina is obliged to analyze all laws which prescribe minor offenses and determine whether there are some similarities between the characteristics of minor offenses as well as criminal offenses, it is necessary to change the existing law which prescribes minor offenses on state and entity level, as well as to conduct harmonization with the criminal law, whenever it is determined that there are some similarities. In this manner the authors assess the existing state, with special reference on minor offenses and criminal offenses with violent characteristics in the law system of Republic of Srpska and suggest further measures for harmonization of our penal system with requirements from the above judgment and the mentioned practice of the European court for human rights regarding the application of the principle ne bis in idem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]