Incidenţa principiului legalităţii incriminării şi pedepsei în contextul modificării regulilor de aplicare a legii penale mai favorabile, impuse de Curtea de Justiţie a Uniunii Europene pe calea hotărârilor preliminare
The applicability of the legality of incrimination and sanctioning principle triggered by a change of rules regarding the application of the most lenient criminal law, imposed by the Court of Justice of the European Union through preliminary rulings

Summary/Abstract: Through a preliminary ruling rendered in a relatively recent case (case C 107/23 PPU [Lin]), the Court of Justice of the European Union requires Romanian national courts ”to disapply a national standard of protection relating to the principle of the retroactive application of the more lenient criminal law (lex mitior) which makes it possible, including in the context of appeals brought against final judgments, to call into question the interruption of the limitation period for criminal liability by procedural acts which took place before declaring the effects of such acts invalid”. The present article aims to analyse the potential problems which may arise from this ruling with regard to the interdiction of retroactive application of a more severe criminal law. We shall first try to analyse the connection between the two principles – that of legality of incrimination and sanctioning and the lex mitior principle –, in order to conclude whether and under what circumstances disapplying the principle of retroactive application of the more lenient criminal law can infringe upon the principle of legality. Once having identified the infringing circumstances, we shall try to analyse to what extent the preliminary rulings of the CJEU can fall within the scope of the principle of non retroactivity of criminal law, when the infringing circumstances mentioned above have been triggered by such a ruling.

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