Sure, but punishment is not the purpose.
The "purpose" of the code, at its root, is to allow for the peacefull coexistance and limited cooperation of magi, and to provide a framework of conflict resolution which is more sophisticated than simple vengance. Even when it has to codify the vengance...
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I'm just now getting back to ArM after being away for a long time--so I haven't seen the supplements to ArM5, particularly the one with the Mercere Portal.
Back when I was running ArM4, one of the potential plot lines involved a mage who wanted to organize a group to build a network of Hermes Portals to connect Covenants from one end of Mythic Europe to the other. If the players took up the goal, they'd have to navigate political waters, gain the skills needed, and hunt for a lot of Vis--all while investigating the murder of the mage who came up with the plan and dealing with the elements of the Order that wanted to thwart it.
The kicker was going to be that the murderer was a Gifted Mercere, and that the Redcaps in general were against the plan, as it would lead to them being obsolete. Jerbitons mostly opposed the plan as it would lead to Magi becoming more insular and isolated from the mundane world, though some were excited by the opportunity to visit distant lands.
That plot was made more or less pointless by ArM5 giving HP a Year-long Duration ...
Oh, well, there are lots of other plot hooks to explore. 
In ArM5 there are permanent portals. They are built as special magical items that can cast the hermes portal spell, but can only be made by house Mercere. The Portals are special because it is normally impossible to craft a magical item that can cast a ritual spell (barring certain exception that would still disqualify hermes portal).
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Looking through my notes from several years ago, I came across the following. It's been a few years, and I haven't double-checked my math recently--so if I'm wrong, don't be too harsh.
Hermes Travel Ring
Material: small base metal item (a ring or a cube)
Effect: Transport one person to anywhere within sight or to which the person has an Arcane Connection. (as per p. 134)
Level: ReCp35 +5 (touch range) +10 (unlimited use) = level 50 effect
Vis use: 5 pawns to open + 5 pawns to enchant = 10 pawns
Comments: This has several advantages over a Hermes Portal:
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It takes less vis and ability than creating a Hermes Portal. (Even if two were created----after all Hermes Portal must be cast twice to be effective----it still requires less vis. HP requires 30 pawns. It would take only 20 pawns to enchant two of these items.)
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It is not limited to taking the user to just one place. (If the effect were changed in such a way that it were, that should lower the level of the effect, though there are no guidelines to say by how much.)
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It is portable. (However, it could mimic the nature of Hermes Portal if it were set permanently in one location by mundane or magical means----but other than preventing theft, I don’t see why it would be.)
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It is permanent. (In ArM 5, Hermes Portal now has a duration of Year.)
It has three disadvantages:
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It transports only people, whereas the description of Hermes Portal mentions animals and inanimate objects. It seems that adding the correct requisites to the effect should take care of that problem. (In truth, why Hermes Portal can do this without those requisites is a little shaky, other than that it is a Mercurian Ritual.)
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It requires one or more seasons to create, whereas Hermes Portal takes only 3 hours and 45 minutes to cast.
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It requires an Arcane Connection for long-distance traveling.
Ultimately, I don’t see why anyone would bother casting Hermes Portal when they could create this item.
Why is this? AFAICS, the only reasons for Hermes Portal being a ritual are (1) the level is above 50, which does not prevent it from being cast by an item, and (2) the year duration, which you could just as well reduce to Moon and save a magnitude. What did I miss?
House Mercere has a lab text/ability that allows them to create permanent Hermes portals (called Mercere portals when they are permanent) and that they are the only ones capable of doing so. The sidebar on page 26 of GotF mentions it being a House Mercere secret.
I had assumed that it is one of those spells that is ritual regardless of R/D/T, and that the spell guideline requiring a ritual is the reason why a specific house Mercere secret is necessary to build such portals. But I think that the explanation is rather more a piece of headcanon of mine, than it is an official rule.
The ring also warps whomever uses it, while hermes portal/mercere's portal is cast upon the earth, linking the two locations rather than casting a spell on what you are transporting, thereby avoiding warping.
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Yeah, I looked it up again.
Hermes Portal and Mercere Portals are mechanically completely different.
The Hermes Portal is a Mercurian Ritual. The fact that it is not built on a guideline, may mean that nobody can invent it or instill a similar effect without a lab text or a new breakthrough.
Mercere Portal casts something similar to Leap of Homecoming (same guideline). In principle anyone could instill something similar by fixating an arcane connection and instil leap of homecoming with it. The strength of the portal seems to be that it can transport great loads and not only individual people. It uses ReTe with no requisites, and it can transport any form.
BTW it is only a trade secret of the Mercere, not a mystical ability. According to HoH:TL you can repeat the feat if you have the chance to study an existing portal for a season, and your lab total suffices. It follows that the House restricts access to these portals, and would not sell you one, lest the secret be lost.
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The reason why I assume a correspondence between Mercere portal and Hermes portal is that both use ReTe.
There are however several canonical Mercere portals in locations that are not controlled by house Mercere. See for example Durenmar. Presumably the thing that prevents people from studying the portals for a season is that you would need to build a lab around the portal and house Mercere would have plenty of opportunity to discover that you building a lab around their portal. After all the portal will most likely be in continuous use, otherwise there would be no reason to build it in the first place. In other words I think that actually studying a Mercere portal for a full season is rather more difficult that it might seem at first.
I think the few non-Mercere guardians of Portals have such a stable governance and long-standing understanding with the Mercere, that they can be let in on the secret and trusted to keep it. I have not read the details, but I imagine portals might exist within an autonomous Mercere House within a covenant, leaving guardianship with their House.
But yes, I always thought the statement about studying it for a season be rather odd. Can you really just study such artifact with no equipment?
I think it must mean "studying for a season in the lab" anything else would be very uncharacteristic of Ars Magica.
HoH:TL p.100f Mercere's Portals sounds, as if the "spend a season studying an existing Mercere's Portal or the lab notes of someone who has already built one" is just for getting the idea how to make one.
Spending a season observing, measuring and magically analyzing an operating Mercere's Portal is unlikely to go unnoticed.
Finding a currently not operating Mercere's Portal and making it work again for analysis is a bigger problem than just building a lab around it, unless the SG provides useful hints. If it is old it may have been compromised during the Schism War. If younger, it is protected by a password and likely some special trigger allowing only a Mercere to operate it.
All this helps to keep creating Mercere's Portals with the House - but does not force that on a saga.
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I honestly think that a magus who successfully negotiated with House Merecere to build two portals (need to, one at each location) isn't suddenly going to go and betray all the work he had just done to get said portals by unduly studying it. Especially since once the portals are present and activated at least once those from Mercere are not needed ever again. So all that work for little gain in betraying one of the foundational houses of the Order.
This is of course ST design but at least in the game setting adventure saga that I am writing for personal fun I see no reason why they would say "nope" to someone who shows them good faith acceptance. Which is why Heru in my saga was able to get them, at him paying the resource and vis cost (which he gathered from his adventurers throughout each year) to agree to make them for him.
On a in-game level all they do is allow players to go between locations they have already gone to before. It stops the 'and you spend a month traveling, nothing happens' scene that occurs when players and STs don't want to focus on what is going on. A portal in the Roman Tribunal and one in say Novgorod just cuts out transport between the two, but not transport within the two. And it is there that adventure truly happens.
I should note I am very much NOT a fan of spells that take away from adventure. I ran a game in another system where my players found a spell, totally legal, that basically cut out an entire plot element due to them transporting away. It was suuuper frustrating. Ars Magica is nice in that in order to teleport somewhere you basically need to go there first, or meet someone wo had gone there first and has an arcane connection to it.
Seems to me the best bet for a non-mercere to learn to make these would be to find a lost portal from the schism war, build an elementary lab around it to study it, and do so for a season.
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To survive making one operational again, you better first find and remove all the magical traps left on it during the schism war. 
it doesn't say it has to be operational to be investigated, nor do you need to use it. For example if the portal at the other end was destroyed it may be perfectly fine to investigate even though it won't function...
of course you face the potential whispers and/or charges of investigating Diedne magic, but...
And then, investigating something that doesn't work any more can give you all the wrong ideas on how it would work.
After about 120 years we still don't know for sure and in detail, how the Antikythera mechanism would have worked.
I agree with Silveroak that this approach is most likely the best chance. However it is important to note that the best chance does not mean a good chance only that there are no better alternatives.
IMO the biggest risk in trying to find a portal that is left over from the schism war is that it most likely involves poking around Diedne ruins, and you would have to avoid the attention of other magi trying to prevent you from doing exactly that.