Fundamental rights of the investigated and application of precautionary measures. A study from art. 19 of the «Norms on more serious delicts»

Abstract

The application of precautionary measures in the preliminary investigation phase is a possibility that the new Norms on more serious delicts of the revised Motu Proprio Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela (art. 19) offers to the Ordinary or Hierarch. The application of these precautionary measures has, in principle, raison d’être, but also puts a series of fundamental rights of the investigated into play, and they are subsequently turned into true penalties when they are unnecessarily prolonged in time. The article aims to review this application of the precautionary measures of can. 1722 through prudence and necessary discernment to which the Ordinaries are bound, and in the light of the principles of proportionality, justice and canonical equity