Aldo Patriciello

I just highlighted it briefly in this week's This Week in Luxembourg, but apparently Aldo Patriciello has two preliminary ruling procedures pending before the ECJ at the same time, which, I think (and hope) stem from the same criminal case, i.e. the prosecution against him for saying - repeatedly - that a police officer entered the wrong times on parking tickets, which is arguably both a slander and a criminal insult.

On the one hand there is a question by the Justice of the Peace in Venafro, from 15 October 2010:

Do the facts construed in abstracto as a criminal offence committed by Aldo Patriciello (a Member of the European Parliament, described in the indictment and in favour of whom the European Parliament adopted a decision on 5 May 2009 to defend immunity), categorised as insulting behaviour under Article 594 of the Penal Code, correspond to the expression of an opinion in the performance of parliamentary duties for the purposes of Article 9 of the Protocol?

But at the same time, there is also a question pending by the Court in Isernia, i.e. the court which is meant to supervise the Justice of the Peace in Venafro, who asked on April 2, 2010:

Do the facts construed in abstracto as a criminal offence committed by Aldo Patriciello — a Member of the European Parliament, described in the indictment and in favour of whom the European Parliament adopted a decision on 5 May 2009 to support a defence of immunity — which is categorised as slander under Article 368 of the Penal Code correspond to the expression of an opinion in the performance of parliamentary duties for the purposes of Article 9 of the Protocol of 8 April 1965 on the privileges and immunities of the European Communities?

This is the question that was answered by AG Jääskinen today, without reference to the later Venafro question. (DE, FR)

How messy is a criminal justice system if these two almost identical questions - slander vs. insult - coming from the same incident, come to the ECJ from two different levels of the court system at the same time?