Communicated on 28 September 2017

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 35449/16 Siegfried STECHER against Austria lodged on 15 June 2016

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the applicant ’ s conviction of 15 April 2015 of aggravated fraud causing damage of more than 50,000 euros (EUR) punishable with one to ten years of imprisonment at that time. Subsequently the applicant was sentenced to twenty-four months of imprisonment, twenty of which were suspended on probation for three years. On 16 December 2015 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant ’ s plea of nullity and forwarded the file to the Linz Court of Appeal to decide on the applicant ’ s appeal against the sentence.

On 1 January 2016 the Criminal Law Amendment Act 2015 ( Strafrechtsänderungsgesetz 2015, BGBl I 112/2015) entered into force providing a maximum of three years of imprisonment for the offence the applicant has committed and was convicted of. On 27 January 2016 the Linz Court of Appeal, after holding an oral hearing, reduced the imposed sentence to eighteen months of imprisonment suspended on probation for two years. The Court of Appe a l applied the more stringent statutory range of punishment provided by the law before 1 January 2016.

QUESTIONS tO THE PARTIES

1. Did the fact that the Court of Appeal applied the more stringent statutory law which had at the time of its decision on the sentence already ceased to be in force violate the applicant ’ s rights guaranteed under Article 7 of the Convention (see for instance Scoppola v. Italy (no. 2) [GC], no. 10249/03, § 109, 17 September 2009 and Koprivnikar v. Slovenia , no. 67503/13, § 49, 24 January 2017)?

2. Does there a general or special rule or an established case-law exist on the question which law has to be applied if the law was amended, including the reduction of the sentence range, after the commission of an offence and the conviction and/or meting out of the sentence?