Judgment concerning Italy
In the case of Florio and Bassignana v. Italy the Court held that there had been a violation of the protection of property.
The case concerned the combined effect of a measure imposed by the criminal courts to confiscate the proceeds of an offence, and an order by the Court of Audit to pay the authorities compensation for the damage caused by that same offence.
The Court observed that the Convention did not prohibit the combination of a reparative measure and a traditional punitive measure. In the present case, however, the confiscation measure had been intended not only to punish the applicants but also to restore the financial situation existing prior to their offences by depriving them of the proceeds. This had ultimately left the applicants in more unfavourable circumstances than before they had committed the offences.
The Court then found that the domestic authorities should have examined the combined effect of the confiscation and compensation measures and verified whether the reparative and punitive aims of the confiscation could have been achieved by less onerous means than combining the two measures in full.