European Court of Human Rights imposes limit on average annual per capita income on court fees

The difficult subsumption of stamp duty on court documents among the court fees related to remuneration considered by the Court (Note to the European Court of Human Rights: Case of Mandev and Others v. Bulgaria of 21 May 2024)

Abstract

On 21 May 2024, the European Court of Human Rights rendered a groundbreaking judgment which is liable to constitute a milestone in human rights tax law. By a majority of five votes to two, the Court ruled that court fees of a “reciprocal” nature should not exceed a maximum threshold, which is based on the per capita average annual income of the State concerned. This is the first time an international human rights court, dealing with the confiscatory level of taxation, rather than establishing a limit in relative terms (such as a specified maximum percentage rate of income tax), has set a limit in absolute terms, establishing a maximum quantitative monetary outlay. This decision opens interesting scenarios regarding the potential applicability of the newly established principle to Italian taxation, particularly in the context of the registration tax on judicial decisions.