Published on 8 September 2025
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 8337/24
Israel CHACÓN PRADO
against Spain
lodged on 13 March 2024
communicated on 19 August 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns a change of case-law which removed prescription for civil liability in the context of enforcement of a criminal judgment and the ensuing refusal to consider the applicant’s debt time barred.
On 17 July 2010 the applicant was found guilty of two offences of tax fraud linked to an offence of forgery of a private document. He was sentenced to two distinct prison terms as well as two pecuniary penalties which were converted to one month of imprisonment each. He was further ordered to pay 12,975,352.66 euros in joint civil liability with the other convicts in the same case. This amount tallied with the sum of VAT exemptions and reimbursements that had been improperly granted to the several companies used by the perpetrators for the tax fraud scheme.
At that time, the case-law of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court established that the civil liability arising from the commission of a criminal offence (ex delicto) was subjected to the general fifteen-year statute of limitation for civil claims. In 2015 the general statute of limitation for civil claims was reduced to five years.
On 13 November 2020 the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court changed its case-law on the statute of limitation regarding civil liability ex delicto. It held, in a plenary judgment, that civil liability was henceforward not subject to any statute of limitation when it derived from the commission of a criminal offence.
On 23 March 2022 the applicant asked the criminal court to declare that the civil liability in his case had been statute-barred because there had been no progress in the criminal enforcement proceedings for more than five years. The criminal court rejected the claim, arguing that civil liability ex delicto was no longer subject to a statute of limitation due to the Supreme Court’s recent reversal.
In the applicant’s submission, the imprescriptible character of civil liability in criminal cases breached the required foreseeability under Article 7 of the Convention. He also complained that the measure had imposed an excessive individual burden on him, in breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant exhausted all effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, did the applicant raise before the national authorities, at least in substance, the issue under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1?
2. Is Article 7 applicable to the facts complained of? In particular, is civil liability considered a criminal-law matter when a criminal court performs a joint examination of both the criminal liability and the civil liability resulting from the commission of an offence? Did the debt, established by the criminal court following the applicant’s criminal conviction for tax fraud, fall under the notion of a “penalty” within the meaning of Article 7 § 1 of the Convention (see, G.I.E.M. S.r.l. and Others v. Italy [GC], nos. 1828/06 and 2 others, §§ 210-211, 28 June 2018 and references cited therein) or was its nature different, for example, a measure for the recovery of a tax debt or an award of damages to the Public Treasury?
3. Assuming Article 7 is applicable, did the derogation of the statutory limitation on civil liability ex delicto impose a heavier penalty on the applicant than the one which was applicable at the time of the commission of the offence, as proscribed by Article 7 of the Convention? Was the reversal of case-law pronounced in the judgment no. 607/2020, of 13 November 2020, of the plenary Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, in breach of the principle of legal certainty and the foreseeability of the law?
4. Has there been an interference with the applicant’s peaceful enjoyment of possessions, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? In so far as the change of case-law regarding prescription combined with the refusal to declare the applicant’s civil liability time-barred was an interference in his property, was it a measure to secure the payment of taxes or penalties? Did that measure impose an excessive individual burden on the applicant? The applicant is invited to submit detailed information about the enforcement proceedings regarding the debt at issue and the concrete manner in which he is currently affected by the impugned interference.