Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2008:768
Date: 2008-12-22
Language of the case: German
Court formation: Sixth Chamber
Based on: Treaty on European Union (1992)
Subject matter: Justice and home affairs;Closer cooperation
Concepts: Ne bis in idem principle
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Austria

Summary of the Judgment European Union – Police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters – Protocol integrating the Schengen acquis – Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement – Ne bis in idem principle (Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement, Art. 54) The ne bis in idem principle enshrined in Article 54 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement, which aims to ensure that a person is not prosecuted for the same acts in the territory of several Contracting States on account of his having exercised his right to freedom of movement, does not fall to be applied to a decision by which an authority of a Contracting State, after examining the merits of the case brought before it, makes an order, at a stage before the charging of a person suspected of a crime, suspending the criminal proceedings, where the suspension decision does not, under the national law of that State, definitively bar further prosecution and therefore does not preclude new criminal proceedings, in respect of the same acts, in that State. Therefore, a decision of a police authority which, while suspending criminal proceedings, does not under the national law concerned definitively bring the prosecution to an end, cannot constitute a decision which would make it possible to conclude that the trial of that person has been ‘finally disposed of’ within the meaning of Article 54 of the abovementioned Convention. (see paras 40-41, 45, operative part)