CELEX: 62018CA0704
Language: en
Date: 2020-02-12 00:00:00
Title: Case C-704/18: Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber) of 12 February 2020 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Spetsializiran nakazatelen sad — Bulgaria) — Criminal proceedings against Nikolay Kolev and Others (Reference for a preliminary ruling — Article 267 TFEU — Implementation of a preliminary ruling of the Court — Power of a higher court to impose an injunction relating to the detailed rules for implementation — Procedural autonomy of the Member States — Principle of effectiveness — Observance of the rights of the defence)

30.3.2020   
            
            
               EN
            
            
               Official Journal of the European Union
            
            
               C 103/4
            
         
      Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber) of 12 February 2020 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Spetsializiran nakazatelen sad — Bulgaria) — Criminal proceedings against Nikolay Kolev and Others
      (Case C-704/18) (1)
      
      (Reference for a preliminary ruling - Article 267 TFEU - Implementation of a preliminary ruling of the Court - Power of a higher court to impose an injunction relating to the detailed rules for implementation - Procedural autonomy of the Member States - Principle of effectiveness - Observance of the rights of the defence)
      (2020/C 103/04)
      Language of the case: Bulgarian
      
         Referring court
      
      Spetsializiran nakazatelen sad
      
         Parties in the main proceedings
      
      Nikolay Boykov Kolev, Stefan Georgiev Kostadinov, Nasko Dimitrov Kurdov, Plamen Georgiev Drenski, Georgi Atanasov Zlatanov, Dimitar Atanasov Dimitrov
      
         Operative part of the judgment
      
      In the light of the Court’s interpretation of Article 6(3) and Article 7(3) of Directive 2012/13/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2012 on the right to information in criminal proceedings in point 2 of the operative part of the judgment of 5 June 2018, Kolev and Others (C-612/15, EU:C:2018:392), Article 267 TFEU must be interpreted as not precluding a provision of national procedural law which obliges the referring court in the case giving rise to that judgment to comply with an injunction, imposed on it by a higher court, to refer the case back to the prosecutor, after the termination of the trial phase of the criminal proceedings, for procedural irregularities committed during the pre-trial phase of those proceedings to be remedied, to the extent that those provisions of EU law, as interpreted by the Court in point 2 of the operative part of that judgment, are respected in the context of the pre-trial phase of the criminal proceedings or in that of the subsequent trial phase thereof.
      
         (1)  OJ C 25, 21.1.2019.