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Administrative sanctions can be said to dwell in the periphery of punishment because they do not require setting the wheels of criminal procedure in motion. This allows States to save public resources as well as helps them to escape closer scrutiny at the judicial level. At the same time, the imposition of administrative sanctions usually curtails individual guarantees. Against this background, this article examines where the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) draws the line between measures belonging to the ‘hard core of criminal law’ and the periphery. After a presentation of gradual broadening of the ‘criminal limb’ guarantees of Article 6 European Convention on Human Rights to administrative measure of a punitive nature, it explores where do these guarantees meet their limits by taking the approach adopted in the landmark Jussila judgment as a point of departure. Subsequently, a structured analysis of the selected ECtHR case law in which this approach has been applied or – at least – invoked is provided. The article is finished with a reflection on the current interpretation of the said penumbra of punishment, which, among other things, identifies the possible gaps of individual protection, and the outlook for the future.
The Council of Europe (CoE) has a long-standing record of promoting standards of good administration in the European legal space. Today, these standards encapsulate the entire range of general organisational, procedural and substantive legal institutions meant to ensure a democratically legitimised, open and transparent administration respecting the rule of law. Therefore, these standards are about the ‘limiting function’ of administrative law, that is, its function to protect individuals from arbitrary power, to legitimise administrative action and to combat corruption and nepotism and other ‘diseases’ with which even a democratic polity willing to be governed by the rule of law may be infected. These CoE standards can be described as ‘pan-European principles of good administration.