The concept of criminal matter in the European Courts case law

The European Court of Human Rights has always emphasized that, in order to avoid a surreptitious shift of individual safeguards that article 6 and 7 reserve criminal law, the distinction between the criminal nature of offenses and the related sanction cannot be based on the criterion of legal-formal classification of the of-fence under national law, and has therefore developed an autonomous concept of “criminal matter” (“criminal charge”) in relation to that of the national legal tradi-tions and of the legislative-formal choices regarding the case from time to time ex-amined . The adoption of the doctrine of the “interprétation autonome” of the concept of criminal matter represents a solution that has certainly been urged by the com-pulsory confrontation with a wide variety of legal systems.