Case C-263/24, Smiliev: Judgment of the Court (Tenth Chamber) of 3 July 2025 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Rayonen sad Tutrakan – Bulgaria) – Criminal proceedings against YE (Reference for a preliminary ruling – Judicial cooperation in criminal matters – Framework Decision 2008/675/JHA – Article 3(1) and (2) – Taking account of previous convictions handed down in another Member State in the course of new criminal proceedings – Legal effects equivalent to previous national convictions – Framework Decision 2009/315/JHA – Exchange of information extracted from the criminal record between Member States – Article 2(a) – Concept of criminal conviction – Administrative offences – Classification of offences under national law – Acts not constituting criminal offences under national law)
Date: 2025-07-03
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: criminal proceedings, criminal record, exchange of information, judicial cooperation in criminal matters in the EU, offence








C_202504559EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2025/4559


25.8.2025






Judgment of the Court (Tenth Chamber) of 3 July 2025 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Rayonen sad Tutrakan – Bulgaria) – Criminal proceedings against YE


(Case C-263/24,
                (1)
Smiliev
                (2)
)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Judicial cooperation in criminal matters - Framework Decision 2008/675/JHA - Article 3(1) and (2) - Taking account of previous convictions handed down in another Member State in the course of new criminal proceedings - Legal effects equivalent to previous national convictions - Framework Decision 2009/315/JHA - Exchange of information extracted from the criminal record between Member States - Article 2(a) - Concept of criminal conviction - Administrative offences - Classification of offences under national law - Acts not constituting criminal offences under national law)
(C/2025/4559)
Language of the case: Bulgarian

Referring court

Rayonen sad Tutrakan

Parties in the main proceedings

YE

Other party: Rayonna prokuratura Silistra, Teritorialno otdelenie Tutrakan

Operative part of the judgment







1.


Article 3(1) of Council Framework Decision 2008/675/JHA of 24 July 2008 on taking account of convictions in the Member States of the European Union in the course of new criminal proceedings
must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation under which, in order to rule on criminal proceedings, the court having jurisdiction is obliged to disregard the previous convictions handed down in another Member State in respect of the person who is the subject of those proceedings for acts which do not constitute criminal offences under national law and cannot therefore be the subject, under that law, of a criminal conviction.










2.


Article 3(1) and (2) of Framework Decision 2008/675, read in conjunction with Article 2(a) of Council Framework Decision 2009/315/JHA of 26 February 2009 on the organisation and content of the exchange of information extracted from the criminal record between Member States, as amended by Directive (EU) 2019/884 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019, must be interpreted as meaning that it is for the national court having jurisdiction, for the purposes of taking account of previous convictions handed down in another Member State against the person subject to the criminal proceedings before that national court, to assess whether the acts which gave rise to the previous final decisions of the courts of the other Member State, of which it became aware, were classified, in the light of the classification under the law of the other Member State, as criminal offences.
Under Article 3(1) and (2) of Framework Decision 2008/675, that court is required to take into account only those decisions and to confer on them legal effects equivalent to those which would be attached to previous national convictions on account of the commission of a criminal offence belonging to an equivalent category and giving rise to a sentence of a comparable nature and level. However, taking this into account must not result in the person concerned being treated less favourably in the proceedings in question than if the decisions had been handed down by a national court.






(1)  OJ C, C/2024/4080.

(2)  The name of the present case is a fictitious name. It does not correspond to the real name of any party to the proceedings.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/4559/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)