Published on 26 July 2021
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 3405/21
Gianluca ZAGHINI
against San Marino
lodged on 7 January 2021
communicated on 6 July 2021
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the confiscation of the funds of the applicant (an Italian national) amounting to 1,892,700 euros (EUR) which had been held in San Marino. The sum had originally been preventively seized, with the collaboration of the San Marino authorities, following a request by the Italian courts before which the applicant was being tried for fraud (frode) to the detriment of the Italian State. In 2018 the proceedings against him in Italy were discontinued, as they had become time-barred, and the Italian courts ordered the release of such sums. However, the applicant was unable to recover the funds since, in the meantime, as a result of a judgment of 9 May 2008 confirming a first-instance judgment, the applicant’s father was found guilty of money laundering by the San Marino courts. The latter ordered the confiscation of the sums which had been seized and which constituted the object (corpo del reato) of the crime of money laundering (whose predicate offence was that with which the applicant was charged in Italy). They were confiscated by means of an execution order of 19 December 2008. The proceedings brought by the applicant for the recovery of the funds before the judge for international cooperation and later the judge of execution were unsuccessful. In particular, the judge of execution, both on appeal (by a judgment of 2 January 2019) and at third instance (by a judgment of 18 September 2020) considered that the execution judge had no authority to revoke such confiscation issued following a guilty verdict.
The applicant thus complains that he had no effective means to challenge the confiscation order (issued in proceedings to which he was not a party), which he considered unlawful, not in pursuance of a legitimate aim and not proportionate.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Was the confiscation in the present case in conformity with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention? In particular did the applicant have a reasonable opportunity of putting his case to the competent authorities for the purposes of effectively challenging the impugned measure (see for general principles G.I.E.M. S.R.L. and Others v. Italy [GC], nos. 1828/06 and 2 others, § 302, 28 June 2018, and the case-law cited therein)?
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy