Order;Summary — ECLI:EU:C:2020:771
Date: 2020-10-01
Language of the case: Croatian
Court formation: Seventh Chamber
Subject matter: Immigration and asylum policy;Approximation of laws;Public health;Judicial cooperation in criminal matters;Area of freedom, security and justice;Fundamental rights;Charter of Fundamental Rights
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling - inadmissible
Origin: Croatia

summary but precise way, the link that binds the facts examined in those respective criminal proceedings, the facts referred to in the grounds of the final judgment delivered on 3 November 2016 by the Landesgericht Klagenfurt (Klagenfurt Regional Court), the facts which were examined by the Klagenfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office but which were not formally included in the indictment it drew up and the reasons why the Pula Public Prosecutor’s Office had investigated offences connected to those which had already been the subject of criminal proceedings in Austria. Second, that court merely reproduces the content of the indictments drawn up by those two national public prosecutors’ offices and the operative part of the judgment of the Landesgericht Klagenfurt (Klagenfurt Regional Court), without explaining the facts in a way that gives a logical and comprehensible overview of them. It follows that the referring court has not set out with a sufficient degree of clarity and precision all the relevant facts or all the facts on which the question is based and has thus failed to satisfy the requirement laid down in Article 94(a) of the Rules of Procedure. 32 Moreover, by merely summarising GR and HS’s claims, based on an alleged infringement of the ne bis in idem principle without explaining, in the light of the documents relied on by those persons, to what extent it could possibly be found that the material facts are identical and by failing, moreover, to explain the tenor of the question referred, both in law and in the light of the relevant facts, as well as the doubts which it has as to the application of the principle of ne bis in idem in relation to the criterion of the identity of the facts and, where appropriate, to the case-law of the Court of Justice on the matter, the referring court has not set out with sufficient clarity and precision the reasons which led it to refer that question and has therefore failed to satisfy the requirement laid down in Article 94(c) of the Rules of Procedure. 33 Having regard to all of the foregoing considerations, it must be held that, pursuant to Article 53(2) of the Rules of Procedure, the present request for a preliminary ruling is manifestly inadmissible. 34 That being so, it should be borne in mind that the referring court retains the right to submit a new request for a preliminary ruling when it is in a position to provide the Court with all the information enabling the Court to give a ruling on the question referred (see, to that effect, orders of 23 May 2019, Trapeza Peiraios, C‑105/19, not published, EU:C:2019:452, paragraph 17, and of 11 July 2019, Jadransko osiguranje, C‑651/18, not published, EU:C:2019:613, paragraph 31). Costs 35 Since these proceedings are, for the parties in the main proceedings, a step in the action pending before the referring court, the decision on costs is a matter for that court. On those grounds, the Court (Seventh Chamber) hereby orders: The request for a preliminary ruling made by the Županijski sud u Puli (Pula County Court, Croatia), made by decision of 17 February 2020, is manifestly inadmissible. [Signatures] * Language of the case: Croatian.