Fine

FINE. - Among the various penalties common to the CIC and to the Italian Penal Code, there is still today the m. [fine]. It can be defined, at least generically, as the burden imposed on violators of certain laws to pay over a sum more or less expressly fixed in favor of those whom the law or the judge designate.

I. IN CANON LAW

Ecclesiastical laws, as early as the 6th-7th century, introduced pecuniary penalties, deriving them from the Germanic laws. This discipline was maintained, despite various abuses (which the Council of Trent later sought to eliminate in various sessions), down to the CIC, into which it entered with various modifications. For the CIC the m. is a common vindictive penalty, that is, applicable not only to clerics but also to the simple faithful (can. 2291, no. 12). Today, however, at least in many States, it would be, if not impossible, certainly problematic to be able (especially coercively, even supposing all coercions of a spiritual nature) to impose the m. not only on the simple faithful but even on clerics, if they, having been condemned, do not pay it spontaneously. In any case the Church is fully within her right, and she uses it, in truth very sparingly, in various cases.

Fines are imposed in cann. 395 § 2 (to repress certain negligences of dignitaries, canons and simple beneficiaries), 1625 § 5 (against judges who violate the secrecy of office or notify acts to outsiders), 1666 (against advocates and procurators who have acted venally in their office), 2347 no. 2 (against anyone, Ordinary or cleric, who alienated ecclesiastical goods or gave consent thereto, violating cann. 534 § 1 and 1532), 2406 § 2 (against anyone who did not satisfy the legitimate requests for acts and documents of the curias and parish archives), 2408 (against anyone who unlawfully increased the fees established in can. 1507).

With regard to the recipient, it is established in can. 2297 that the amount of the m. be devoted, unless otherwise provided — which only the CIC or a decree of the Holy See can contemplate — to pious purposes, but never to the benefit of the episcopal mensa or of the Chapter. This obviously holds also for pecuniary penalties imposed by particular laws of lower legislators. Contrary to what happens in the Italian penal code, in the CIC there is no distinction, moreover merely quantitative, between m. and ammenda.

II. IN ITALIAN LAW

The division between crimes and misdemeanors is reflected in a double pecuniary penalty: the fine (m.) for the former (art. 17, para. 1), the amends for the latter.

The fine is defined as: payment to the State of a sum not less than fifty lire nor more than fifty thousand lire (art. 24, para. 1), a sum which Decree Law of 21 Oct. 1947, no. 1250 raised respectively to 400 and 400,000. With the exception of proportional fines, which have no maximum limit, the others are fixed: and it is the law itself that determines both the one and the other (art. 27); for example, the fine that is proportioned to the damage caused, as provided in arts. 250-52, has no maximum limit. The criminal law provides for the possibility of a fine even in cases for which it is not expressly established by the Code: indeed art. 24, para. 2 states that "for crimes determined by motive of profit, if the law establishes only the penalty of imprisonment, the judge may add the fine from fifty lire to twenty thousand" (respectively, under the aforementioned Decree Law of 21 Oct. 1947, 400 and 160,000). In any case, "when, given the economic conditions of the offender, the fine established by law may be presumed ineffective even if applied at its maximum, the judge has the power to increase it up to threefold" (art. 24, para. 3). Even when there are many aggravating circumstances the sum is tripled, but it may not exceed 800,000 lire or, if it is a matter of adapting it to the economic conditions of the offender, 2,000,000 (art. 66, no. 3 and Decree Law of 21 Oct. 1947, no. 1250). In the case, moreover, of multiple offenses, five times the most serious of the concurrent fines is applied, without exceeding 1,200,000 lire or, in the case of adaptation to the economic conditions of the offender, 3,200,000 lire.

Although the penalty by its nature requires personal satisfaction on the part of the offender, it is exceptionally permitted that it may also be paid by third parties on behalf of the offender: a circumstance that many times slows down the rule of art. 136, para. 1, which provides for imprisonment for anyone proved insolvent, imprisonment which in that case occurs as of right. It should be noted, however, that not all pecuniary sanctions are fines, that is, penalties in the strict sense, since there are also civil or fiscal pecuniary sanctions; the sole and absolute criterion of distinction is that only pecuniary penalties applied for crimes are fines.

The penalty of the fine is certainly lawful. It would, however, be more appropriate, as regards the Italian Penal Code, to eliminate the distinction between those who are affected and those who are not affected by the fine; the law, especially criminal law, should in applying penalties look to the objective element, which should be the same for all; besides, it is far too problematic in very many cases to judge who is affected more and who less, and to what extent, by a pecuniary burden, even disregarding those who are not affected at all or hardly at all, even in cases of a tripled fine; above all because, in criminal matters, equal rights should correspond to an equal objective penalty.

Lorenzo Simeone

III. IN ARCHAEOLOGY

Often, in the sepulchral inscription, a fine in money was indicated in the name of the deceased for anyone who violated the integrity of the tomb, to be paid to the treasury or the fisc and later to the ecclesiastical authority.

The indication of such fines is found in open-air sepulchral inscriptions. The oldest known so far is the one read in the epitaph of Bishop Abercius (v.) of Hierapolis, in which a fine of 2000 gold pieces is imposed, to be paid to the Roman treasury, and of 1000 gold pieces to the city of Hierapolis. Fines indicated in the epigraphs of the cemetery of Concordia (v.) are frequent, in which the violator must give (dabit) or pay in (inferat) either to the city (reipublicae: CIL, V, 8741) or to the fisc (ibid., 8740, 8745, 8761) or viribus fisci (ibid., 8734, 8739, 8743) or rationalibus fisci (to the administration of the fisc [ibid., 8988]) or even to the church of the city of Concordia (ibid., 8740). Likewise, again in Dalmatia, in the epigraphs of Salona (Ecclesiae Salontanae, CIL, III, 2654, of the year 358; 9508 of the year 384; 13.124 of the year 426 or 430). The amount of the fine had to be paid immediately, sine mora (inscription of Concordia, ibid., V, 8740) or ante litis ingressum (inscription of Traù, ibid., III, 2704). As for the size of the fine, it was ad libitum: in fact, from the 3000 gold pieces in total imposed by Abercius one descends to 4 ounces of gold in the epitaph of Traù, to 50 ounces of silver at Spalato (ibid., 2654) or to fines calculated in sesterces at Concordia (ibid., V, 8988).

Enrico Josi