Case C-223/23, Redu: Request for a preliminary ruling from the Curtea de Apel Brașov (Romania) lodged on 11 April 2023 — Criminal proceedings against L.D.
Date: 2023-04-11
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: European driving licence, Romania, appeal, free movement of persons, human rights, legal system, limitation of legal proceedings, road safety, rule of law, traffic offence








C_2023261EN.01000701.xml










24.7.2023   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 261/7






Request for a preliminary ruling from the Curtea de Apel Brașov (Romania) lodged on 11 April 2023 — Criminal proceedings against L.D.
(Case C-223/23, Redu) (1)

(2023/C 261/13)
Language of the case: Romanian

Referring court

Curtea de Apel Brașov

Appellant

L.D.

Questions referred







1.


Must Article 2 TEU, the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU and Article 4[(3)] TEU, read in conjunction with recitals 2, 15 and 22 and Article 11(4) of Directive 2006/126/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 on driving licences, (2) from the point of view of the Member State’s obligation to take all appropriate and necessary measures to achieve the objective of improving road safety, in the context of the free movement of persons within the European Union, and in application of Commission Decision 2006/928/EC, (3) with reference to the last sentence of Article 49(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, be interpreted as precluding a legal situation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, in which the appellant seeks, by means of an extraordinary appeal, to have set aside a final judgment in criminal proceedings for the offence of driving a motor vehicle with a suspended driving licence, which would enable him to exercise his right to drive again, implying freedom of movement throughout the European Union, invoking the application of the principle of the more lenient criminal law, which he alleges was applicable in the course of the substantive proceedings and would have entailed a shorter limitation period which would have expired before the case was finally concluded, but which was only subsequently revealed by a decision of the national Constitutional Court which declared legislation on interrupting the limitation period for criminal liability to be unconstitutional (decision of 2022), on the ground that the legislature had failed to act to bring the legislation in question into line with another decision of the same Constitutional Court delivered four years earlier (decision of 2018) — and in the interim the case-law of the ordinary courts applying the first decision had become settled in the sense that the legislation in question continued to exist, in the form understood following the first decision of the Constitutional Court — with the practical consequence that the limitation period for all the offences in relation to which no final conviction had been handed down prior to the first decision of the Constitutional Court was reduced by half and the criminal proceedings against the [defendant] in question were consequently discontinued?










2.


Must Article 2 TEU, on the values of the rule of law and respect for human rights in a society in which justice prevails, and Article 4[(3)] TEU, on the principle of sincere cooperation between the European Union and the Member States, in application of Commission Decision 2006/928/EC in so far as it concerns the commitment to ensuring the efficiency of the Romanian judicial system, with reference to the last sentence of Article 49[(1)] of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which enshrines the principle of the more lenient criminal law, be interpreted, in relation to the national judicial system as a whole, as precluding a legal situation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, in which the appellant seeks, by means of an extraordinary appeal, to have set aside a final judgment in criminal proceedings for the offence of driving a motor vehicle with a suspended driving licence, which would enable him to exercise his right to drive again, implying freedom of movement throughout the European Union, invoking the application of the principle of the more lenient criminal law, which he alleges was applicable in the course of the substantive proceedings and would have entailed a shorter limitation period which would have expired before the case was finally concluded, but which was only subsequently revealed by a decision of the national Constitutional Court which declared legislation on interrupting the limitation period for criminal liability to be unconstitutional (decision of 2022), on the ground that the legislature had failed to act to bring the legislation in question into line with another decision of the same Constitutional Court delivered four years earlier (decision of 2018) — and in the interim the case-law of the ordinary courts applying the first decision had become settled in the sense that the legislation in question continued to exist, in the form understood following the first decision of the Constitutional Court — with the practical consequence that the limitation period for all the offences in relation to which no final conviction had been handed down prior to the first decision of the Constitutional Court was reduced by half and the criminal proceedings against the [defendant] in question were consequently discontinued?










3.


If so, and only if it is impossible to provide an interpretation in conformity with EU law, is the principle of the primacy of EU law to be interpreted as precluding national legislation or a national practice pursuant to which the ordinary national courts are bound by decisions of the national Constitutional Court and binding decisions of the national supreme court and may not, for that reason and at the risk of committing a disciplinary offence, of their own motion disapply the case-law resulting from those decisions, even if, in the light of a judgment of the Court of Justice, they take the view that that case-law is contrary to Article 2 TEU, the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU and Article 4[(3)] TEU, in conjunction with recitals 2, 15 and 22 and Article 11(4) of Directive 2006/126/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 on driving licences, from the point of view of the Member State’s obligation to take all appropriate and necessary measures to achieve the objective of improving road safety, and in application of Commission Decision 2006/928/EC, with reference to the last sentence of Article 49[(1)] of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as in the situation in the main proceedings?






(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.

(2)  OJ 2006 L 403, p. 18.

(3)  Commission Decision of 13 December 2006 establishing a mechanism for cooperation and verification of progress in Romania to address specific benchmarks in the areas of judicial reform and the fight against corruption (OJ 2006 L 354, p. 56).