Annual Conferences

Do labels still matter ? Blurring boundaries between administrative and criminal law. The influence of the EU

Criminal law has gone through a tremendous evolution over the last decades.

As other legal disciplines, criminal law is confronted with a growing blur between legal categories. Various dimensions of such blur have been identified in legal literature. Among these dimensions, the fuzzy boundaries between administrative and criminal law are of particular interest. Traditionally serious crime is a field where the legislator adopted criminal law measures and where, at present, the recourse to administrative law or administrative measures becomes more frequent. The significance, the role of administrative law and measures change with respect to the type of serious crime concerned.

The purpose of this conference would hence be to reflect upon the abovementioned blur between administrative and criminal law.

In order to do so, the first session will focus on the analysis of specific case studies illustrating the breadth of the intervention of administrative law. The second session will then be devoted to the study of some transversal issues organised in 2 sub-sessions: first, the difference between criminal law and administrative law and second the existence and/or organisation of interaction between both frameworks. The conference will also assess the influence of the EU on the existence and development of the blur.

The conference will lead to the publication in 2014 of a collective book (Editions de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles).