Andras Gyorgy Kovács researched the effectiveness of competition sanctions from the perspective of an administrative judge. Undertakings in breach of competition law rules are most likely expected to be fined. His hypothesis, ,to be examined through the courts’ case law, is that the level of competition fines is significantly higher than that of criminal penalties. Nevertheless, it is not unusual for the very same undertaking to be reinvestigated by the competition authority for a second or even third time. It seems that the expected legal policy aim of fines in competition matters, i.e. the individual and general prevention of anticompetitive practices, cannot be achieved in all cases. His chapter aims at identifying the reasons thereof and presenting a number of conclusions, to be drawn from the Hungarian administrative courts’ jurisprudence, in respect of the effectiveness of the imposition of fines. He argues that judicial case law can resolve some of the efficiency problems, while others require modification of the legislation. As regards repeated infringements, evaluating this as an aggravating factor may be used in an effective and reassuring way when imposing a fine. He argues for laws which stipulate the imposition of fines proportionate to the infringing undertakings’ income and assets.

Public health has been given over ever more to individual citizens to vouchsafe. Democracy requires its participants to take responsibility for themselves, not be ordered about by a state. That applies primarily to chronic and lifestyle diseases, where the individual can have an effect. But epidemic diseases have not disappeared, though they are no longer as important in the industrialized world as earlier. To prevent pandemics, the state and its interventions are still needed. Because every infected person poses a threat to others, and no one wants to bear the inconvenience of preventive measures, statutory enforcement is required. This dilemma came out starkly in the coronavirus pandemic. In effect, the state held a third of humanity in house arrest during the spring of 2020. In other ways, it regulated its subjects drastically, with fines and even jail for violating pandemic restrictions. But not all violation of required behavior could be just made unlawful. To get people to wear masks, for example, passing laws and regulations was not very effective. Citizens had to buy-in to the need for masks and adopt them voluntarily. Much the same will hold for a vaccine, if and when one becomes available.

The Statute does not specify the penalty for specific crimes, leaving it to the Trial Chamber to fix a custodial sentence to a maximum of thirty years and, ‘when justified by the extreme gravity of the crime and the individual circumstances of the convicted person’, life imprisonment. Reflecting developments in international human rights law, the Court excludes any possibility of capital punishment. It may also impose a fine. The main objectives in imposing sentence are retribution and deterrence. Aggravating and mitigating factors are set out in the Rules of Procedure and Evidence. The convicted person may apply for early release after serving two-thirds of the sentence or, in the case of life imprisonment, after twenty-five years. Sentences are served in the domestic prisons of a State Party that has been so designated by the Trial Chamber.