MULTA. – Among the various penalties common to the CIC and the Italian Penal Code, the fine still exists today. It may be defined, at least in general terms, as the obligation imposed on violators of certain laws to pay a more or less explicitly fixed sum for the benefit of whoever is designated by the law or by the judge.
I. IN CANON LAW
Ecclesiastical laws introduced pecuniary penalties as early as the sixth and seventh centuries, deriving them from Germanic laws. This discipline was maintained despite various abuses (which the Council of Trent subsequently sought to eliminate in various sessions), until the CIC, in which it entered with various modifications. The fine is, under the CIC,a common vindictive penalty, that is, one applicable not only to clerics but also to the simple faithful (can. 2291, n. 12). Today, however, at least in many States, it would be, if not impossible, certainly problematic to impose the fine—especially coercively, even supposing all forms of coercion of a spiritual nature—not only on the simple faithful but even on clerics, if, after being sentenced, they do not pay it voluntarily. In any event, the Church is fully within her rights, and in fact makes use of them, though very sparingly, in various cases.
Fines are prescribed in cann. 395 § 2 (to curb certain negligences on the part of dignitaries, canons, and simple beneficiaries), 1625 § 5 (against judges who violate official secrecy or notify outsiders of acts), 1666 (against advocates and procurators who have behaved venally in their office), 2347 n. 2 (against anyone, whether Ordinary or cleric, who alienated ecclesiastical goods or consented thereto, in violation of cann. 534 § 1 and 1532), 2406 § 2 (against anyone who fails to satisfy the legitimate requests of the curiae and parish archives for acts and documents), and 2408 (against anyone who unlawfully increased the taxes established by can. 1507).
With regard to the recipient, can. 2297 establishes that the amount of the fine is to be devoted, unless a different provision is contemplated—which only the CIC or a decree of the Holy See may provide—for pious purposes, but never for the benefit of the episcopal mensa or the Chapter. This obviously also applies to pecuniary penalties imposed by particular laws of inferior legislators. Unlike what occurs in the Italian Penal Code, the CIC contains no distinction—moreover, merely quantitative—between a fine and a monetary penalty.
II. IN ITALIAN LAW
The division between felonies and misdemeanors is reflected in a twofold pecuniary penalty: the fine for the former (art. 17, para. 1), and the ammenda for the latter.The fine is defined as the payment to the State of a sum not less than fifty lire and not more than fifty thousand lire (art. 24, para. 1), a sum which D. L. 21 Oct. 1947, no. 1250, raised respectively to 400 and 400,000 lire. With the exception of proportional fines, which have no maximum limit, the others are fixed; and it is the law itself that determines both kinds (art. 27). The fine proportioned to the damage caused, as provided in arts. 250–52, for example, has no maximum limit. Criminal law provides for the possibility of a fine even in cases in which it is not expressly established by the Code: art. 24, para. 2, in fact, states that «for felonies determined by a profit motive, if the law establishes only the penalty of imprisonment, the judge may add a fine of from fifty to twenty thousand lire» (respectively, under the aforementioned D. L. of 21 Oct. 1947, 400 and 160,000 lire). In every case, «when, in view of the economic circumstances of the offender, the fine established by law may be presumed ineffective even if imposed at the maximum, the judge has the power to increase it up to threefold» (art. 24, para. 3). Even when there are several aggravating circumstances, the sum is tripled; it may not, however, exceed 800,000 lire or, where it is adjusted to the economic circumstances of the offender, 2,000,000 lire (art. 66, no. 3, and D. L. 21 Oct. 1947, no. 1250). In the case of several offenses, five times the highest of the fines imposed concurrently is applied, without exceeding 1,200,000 lire or, where it is adjusted to the economic circumstances of the offender, 3,200,000 lire.
Although a 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. This circumstance frequently delays the operation of the rule in art. 136, para. 1, which provides imprisonment for anyone proved insolvent, imprisonment which in such a case follows as a matter of law. 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 financial pecuniary sanctions; the sole and absolute criterion of distinction is that only pecuniary penalties imposed for offenses are fines.
The penalty of a fine is certainly lawful. With regard to the Italian Penal Code, however, it would be more appropriate to eliminate the distinction between those who are affected by the fine and those who are not; in applying penalties, the law, especially criminal law, should look to the objective element, which ought to be the same for everyone. Moreover, in very many cases it is too difficult to judge who is affected more or less, and to what extent, by a pecuniary burden, quite apart from those who are not affected by it at all or almost not at all, even in cases of a tripled fine; above all because, in criminal matters, equal rights ought to correspond to an objectively equal penalty.
III. IN ARCHAEOLOGY
The name of the deceased was often used in the funerary inscription to impose a monetary fine on anyone who violated the integrity of the tomb, payable to the treasury or fiscus and later to the ecclesiastical authority.The imposition of such fines is found in funerary inscriptions exposed in the open air. The oldest known to date is that found in Abercio (v.) of Hierapolis, in which a fine of 2,000 aurei payable to the Roman treasury and 1,000 aurei to the city of Hierapolis is imposed. Fines are frequently mentioned in the I CONCORDIA (v.), in which the violator must give (dabit) or pay (inferat) either to the city (reipublicae: CIL, V, 8741), or to the fiscus (ibid., 8740, 8745, 8761), or viribus fisci (ibid., 8734, 8739, 8743), or rationalibus fisci (to the administration of the fiscus [ibid., 8988]), or even to the church of the city of Concordia (ibid., 8740). The same is true, again in Dalmatia, of the epigraphs of Salona (Ecclesiae Salontanae, CIL, III, 2654, of A.D. 358; 9508 of A.D. 384; 13.124 of A.D. 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 amount of the fine, it was ad libitum: in fact, from the total of 3,000 aurei imposed by Abercio, it falls 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).