Article 54 CISA and the ECJ/CGEU case law The EU rules Article 54 CISA and the ECJ/CGEU case law

Article 54 “A person whose trial has been finally disposed of in one Contracting Party may not be prosecuted in another Contracting Party for the same acts provided that, if a penalty has been imposed, it has been enforced, is actually in the process of being enforced or can no longer be enforced under the laws of the sentencing Contracting Party.”

‘Idem’ “same acts”

Article 4(1), Protocol 7 ECHR “No one shall be liable to be tried or punished again in criminal proceedings under the jurisdiction of the same State for an offence for which he has already been finally acquitted or convicted in accordance with the law and penal procedure of that State.”

Article 50 CFREU “No one shall be liable to be tried or punished again in criminal proceedings for an offence for which he or she has already been finally acquitted or convicted within the Union in accordance with the law.”

C-436/04 Van Esbroek (9th March 2006) “[T]he only relevant criterion for the application of Article 54 of the CISA is identity of the material acts, understood in the sense of the existence of a set of concrete circumstances which are inextricably linked together.”

“[T]he definitive assessment in that regard belongs, as rightly pointed out by the Netherlands Government, to the competent national courts which are charged with the task of determining whether the material acts at issue constitute a set of facts which are inextricably linked together in time, in space and by their subject-matter.”

C-367/05 Kraijenbrink (18th July 2007) “[T]he starting point for assessing the notion of same acts’ within the meaning of Article 54 of the CISA is to consider the specific unlawful conduct which gave rise to the criminal proceedings before the courts of the two Contracting States as a whole. Thus, Article 54 of the CISA can become applicable only where the court dealing with the second criminal prosecution finds that the material acts, by being linked in time, in space and by their subject-matter, make up an inseparable whole.”

Article 3(2) EAW Mandatory non-execution “if the executing judicial authority is informed that the requested person has been finally judged by a Member State in respect of the same acts provided that, where there has been sentence, the sentence has been served or is currently being served or may no longer be executed under the law of the sentencing Member State”

Case C-261/09 Mantello (GC 16th November 2010) “In view of the shared objective of Article 54 of the CISA and Article 3(2) of the Framework Decision, which is to ensure that a person is not prosecuted or tried more than once in respect of the same acts, it must be accepted that an interpretation of that concept given in the context of the CISA is equally valid for the purposes of the Framework Decision.”

‘Bis’ “finally disposed of”

C-187/01 and C-385/01 Gözütok and Brügge (11th February 2003) “Article 54 of the CISA, the objective of which is to ensure that no one is prosecuted on the same facts in several Member States on account of his having exercised his right to freedom of movement, cannot play a useful role in bringing about the full attainment of that objective unless it also applies to decisions definitively discontinuing prosecutions in a Member State, even where such decisions are adopted without the involvement of a court and do not take the form of a judicial decision.”

C-150/05 Van Straaten (28th September 2006) “[I]n the case of a final acquittal for lack of evidence, the bringing of criminal proceedings in another Contracting State for the same acts would undermine the principles of legal certainty and of the protection of legitimate expectations. The accused would have to fear a fresh prosecution in another Contracting State although a case in respect of the same acts has been finally disposed of.”

C-467/04 Gasparini and others (28th September 2006) “Not to apply Article 54 of the CISA when a court of a Contracting State, following the bringing of criminal proceedings, has made a decision acquitting the accused finally because prosecution of the offence is time-barred would undermine the implementation of that objective. Such a person must therefore be regarded as having had his trial finally disposed of for the purposes of that provision.”

C-491/07 Turanský (22nd December 2008) “[I]n principle, a decision must, in order to be considered as a final disposal for the purposes of Article 54 of the CISA, bring the criminal proceedings to an end and definitively bar further prosecution.” “A decision which does not, under the law of the first Contracting State which instituted criminal proceedings against a person, definitively bar further prosecution at national level cannot, in principle, constitute a procedural obstacle to the opening or continuation of criminal proceedings in respect of the same acts against that person in another Contracting State.”

Mantello “[A] decision which, under the law of the Member State which instituted criminal proceedings against a person, does not definitively bar further prosecution at national level in respect of certain acts cannot, in principle, constitute a procedural obstacle to the possible opening or continuation of criminal proceedings in respect of the same acts against that person in one of the Member States of the European Union”

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