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HISTORY AND PERCEPTION
OF STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS
1.1
NATIONAL LAWS
AND REGULATIONS ON
STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS
Notwithstanding a common trend of reforming
anticorruption frameworks in EU Member States,
only a few of the countries analysed consider
their statute of limitation systems as an obstacle
to the correct functioning of the judicial system.
Almost all the countries have somehow reviewed
their regime on SOL over the last ten years, not
all of them in a desirable direction and not all of
them in relation to the core of the framework, or
paying particular attention to the protection of
European funds.
In Bulgaria, SOL rules have been changed in the
last year but only for “political” reasons rather
than systemic ones, being the review related to
the exclusion from SOL of crimes committed by
the members of the Communist Party’s governing
bodies from 1944 to 1989.
In Romania, the review of the Criminal Code
(2009) marginally changed the SOL though the
reduction in the criminal sanctions established
for several crimes led to a decrease of the rela-
ted SOL.
In Spain, SOL rules have been amended for
three times over the last years (2010, 2012 and
2015), always making limitation periods longer.
In Portugal, anticorruption law was reformed
both in 2010
2
and in 2015
3
, and SOL along with
it: limitation periods were increased for corrup-
tion and corruption-related crimes, in particular
for fraudulent crimes to obtain subsidies. Such
amendments were introduced as a result of un-
coordinated pressure, making it necessary to
harmonise the rules to ensure a better clarity of
the national framework.
In Greece, SOL for petty offences have been
recently made longer
4
and, more interestingly,
an exception granted to Ministers and mem-
bers of government for a shortened 5-year SOL
was removed
5
.
Italy underwent a radical reform in 2005
6
, driven
by political and personal reasons
7
, which seve-
rely shortened the SOL and weakened the fra-
mework. Since then, the debate to reform such
framework has represented a delicate matter.
A bill of law reforming criminal procedural law
is currently being discussed by the Senate after
being approved by the House of Representati-
ves and it includes strong amendments to the
current law on SOL.
Italy is the only country out of the six countries
examined in this report where SOL are the
object of existing legislative processes though
where national experts consider the framework
not to be exhaustive.
According to the national experts interviewed
for this report, Italy is the only country where
there is a strong need for reform; there is room
for improvement in Spain and Greece while there
is a lack of consensus for Bulgaria and Portugal;
SOL are considered adequate in Romania.
In Italy SOL are considered as a tool for impu-
nity for certain types of crime, like white collar,
corruption-related and fiscal crimes. Among the
factors that contribute to such system are the
length of SOL compared to the average length
of criminal trials, the courts’ heavy workload,
the late discovery of several crimes, the strate-
gies of defence attorneys who strive to have the
case declared statute-barred rather than have
the defendant acquitted based on the merits of
the proceeding.
1