La configuración jurisprudencial a nivel nacional y europeo del principio de proporcionalidad en el establecimiento de sanciones tributarias

Abstract

The principle of proportionality is not only a purely theoretical general principle of law but has been consistently used by national and European courts to assess whether certain conduct by national public authorities violates the rights and freedoms enshrined in the different legal texts, specifically with regard to the establishment and application of sanctions through the ius puniendi of the States. Although it is commonly acknowledged that all sanctions in general, and tax sanctions, must be proportionate to the reproachability of the typical wrongdoing carried out by the offending party, the content of the principle has not been uniformly defined by national and supranational courts. In this paper we therefore set out to examine the existing constitutional and European case law on the principle of proportionality in the establishment of tax penalties to detect the differences between the constitutional and European levels of protection and ascertain whether our Constitutional Court meets the standards of protection established by the European courts.