Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2025:306
Date: 2025-04-30
Language of the case: Bulgarian
Procedure: Preliminary reference - urgent procedure
Origin: Bulgaria

Request for a preliminary ruling from the Varhoven kasatsionen sad (Bulgaria) lodged on 12 February 2025 – Criminal proceedings against М.S.Т. (Case C-135/25 PPU, Kachev) 1 Language of the case: Bulgarian Referring court Varhoven kasatsionen sad Party to the main proceedings М.S.Т. Questions referred Do the legislative requirements of EU law, laid down in Article 9 and Article 8(4) of Directive (EU) 2016/343 1 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2016 on the strengthening of certain aspects of the presumption of innocence and of the right to be present at the trial in criminal proceedings, permit national legislation such as the second sentence of Article 423(1) of the Nakaztelno-protsetsualen kodeks (Bulgarian Code of Criminal Procedure), which rules out the reopening of a criminal case and denies the right to a new trial to a person convicted in absentia, where he or she has absconded after the charge was served on him or her in person during the pre-trial investigation, thus making it impossible for the court to inform him or her of the date and place of the trial, or of the consequences of not appearing before the court, namely that the case can be heard and decided in his or her absence? If the answer to the first question is in the affirmative, do the principles of equality and effectiveness permit the national court to hold that a person convicted in absentia is not entitled to a new trial where: (2.1) the court has made every reasonable effort to inform him or her of the trial, but, while having been officially informed that he or she is accused of having committed a criminal offence and, therefore, aware that he or she is going to be brought to trial, has taken deliberate steps to avoid receiving officially the information regarding the date and place of the trial by absconding from the address at which he or she was to carry out the detention order imposed on him or her during the pre-trial proceedings, namely the house arrest; (2.2) the indictment drawn up pursuant to Article 246 of the Nakaztelno-protsetsualen kodeks and the document indicating the date and place of the scheduled trial have been sent and actually delivered to the address which the convicted person had communicated to the investigating authorities after receiving the preliminary indictment referred to in Article 219 of the Nakaztelno-protsetsualen kodeks, and aware of the fact that the indictment and the charge in the criminal investigation concerned the same offence and legal characterisation; (2.3) the convicted person was defended by the lawyer appointed by the Bar throughout the judicial proceedings conducted in his or her absence? ____________ 1 The name of the present case is a fictitious name. It does not correspond to the real name of any party to the proceedings. 1 OJ 2016 L 65, p. 1.