Constitutional court, March 10, 2023, no. 40

In this ruling, the Italian Constitutional Court assessed the constitutionality of administrative sanctions imposed for violations of rules protecting products with designation of origin (DOP) and geographical indication (IGP). Specifically, the Court declared the unconstitutionality of Article 4, paragraph 1, first sentence, of Legislative Decree No. 297 of November 19th, 2004, insofar as it provided for a fixed pecuniary administrative sanction of “50,000 euros”, instead of a range "from a minimum of 10,000 to a maximum of 50,000 euros."

The constitutional issue was raised by the Supreme Court of Cassation, Second Civil Section, in a case involving the Northeast Quality Institute (INEQ) and the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies.

INEQ, which was responsible for monitoring the quality of the DOP San Daniele ham at the time, was fined 50,000 euros by ministerial order for failing to comply with the due obligations. According to the referring court, the fixed nature of the sanction did not take into account the different levels of severity of the violations attributed to the monitoring body, resulting in a disproportionate treatment of less severe conduct.

Agreeing with the referring judge, the Constitutional Court cited previous decisions that had already established that strict sanction provisions “that hit in the same way, and therefore equate facts that are to some extent different, must comply with the principle of reasonableness” as well as the proportionality one (Constitutional Court, September 12th, 2019, no. 212). This applies not only to criminal but also to administrative sanctions, where “there is a need to ensure that there is no manifest discrepancy between the sanction and the seriousness of the sanctioned offense” (Constitutional Court, September 23, 2021, no. 185).

Having noted the heterogeneity of violations punishable by the same sanction, the Court upheld the constitutional issue under Articles 3, 42, and 117 of the Constitution.

The violation of the principle of proportionality constitutes a breach of Article 3 of the Constitution: proportionality is synonymous with reasonableness and concerns an abstract judgment concerning the "means-ends" relationship pursued by the Legislator.

Furthermore, it is also violated, since the assets of the control body are excessively damaged by the fixed sanction, the right to property guaranteed by articles 42 and 117 of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 1 of the Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights.

In order to avoid a gap in liability resulting from a striking down of the sanction, the constitutional judge redefined the sanction framework by drawing from the existing and more reasonable sanction regime provided for the protection of organic agricultural products. Specifically, Article 8, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 20 of 2018, which punishes violations by monitoring bodies of organic products, provides for the imposition of an administrative pecuniary sanction ranging from a minimum of 10,000 to a maximum of 30,000 euros. Therefore, this minimum sanction threshold is extended to the system protecting DOP and IGP products, while the maximum threshold of the sanction regime (50,000 euros) is retained out of respect for the original intent of the legislator.