Criminal proceedings against Frank Weber.
Date: 2008-11-20
26. First of all, it must be borne in mind that the general principle of mutual recognition of driving licences issued by the Member States, laid down in Article 1(2) of Directive 91/439, was established in order, inter alia, to facilitate the movement of persons settling in a Member State other than that in which they have passed a driving test (see, inter alia, Case C‑476/01 Kapper  [2004] ECR I‑5205, paragraph 71; Joined Cases C‑329/06 and C‑343/06 Wiedemann and Funk  [2008] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 49; and Joined Cases C‑334/06 to C‑336/06 Zerche and Others  [2008] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 46).
27. The Court has consistently held that Article 1(2) of Directive 91/439 provides for mutual recognition, without any formality, of driving licences issued by Member States. That provision imposes on Member States a clear and precise obligation, which leaves no room for discretion as to the measures to be adopted in order to comply with it (see, to that effect, Case C‑230/97 Awoyemi  [1998] ECR I‑6781, paragraphs 41 and 42; Kapper , paragraph 45; Wiedemann and Funk , paragraph 50; and Zerche and Others , paragraph 47).
29. The Court has held on a number of occasions in that regard that the first subparagraph of Article 8(4) of Directive 91 /439 constitutes a derogation from the general principle of mutual recognition of driving licences and is, therefore, to be interpreted strictly (see, inter alia, Wiedemann and Funk , paragraph 60, and Zerche and Others , paragraph 57).
32. The Court has, indeed, had occasion to rule that a Member State can exercise its right under Article 8(2) of Directive 91/439 to apply its own provisions on withdrawal of the right to drive to the holder of a driving licence issued by another Member State only by reason of some conduct of the person concerned after he has obtained that driving licence (see judgments in Wiedemann and Funk , paragraph 59; and orders in Zerche and Others , paragraph 56; Halbritter , paragraph 38; and Kremer , paragraph 35).
34. It was in the light of such considerations that the Court held that a Member State may exercise the right under Article 8(2) of Directive 91/439 only by reason of some conduct of the person concerned after he has obtained a driving licence issued by another Member State. That provision does not permit the Member State of normal residence to refuse to recognise a driving licence issued by another Member State just because the holder has earlier had a previous licence withdrawn in the first Member State ( Wiedemann and Funk , paragraph 66, and Zerche and Others , paragraph 63).
36. In such a situation, the right of the competent authorities and courts of a Member State to refuse to recognise the validity of a driving licence obtained in another Member State by a person whose driving licence has been temporarily suspended in the first Member State must be recognised absolutely and definitively on the basis of the provisions of Directive 91/439, in particular Article 8(4) thereof, where the temporary suspension is followed by the withdrawal of the right to drive on the basis of the same facts (see, to that effect, the order of 3 July 2008 in Case C‑225/07 Möginger , paragraph 41). The fact that withdrawal of the right to drive is ordered after the date of issue of the new driving licence is irrelevant in that regard, since the grounds for that measure existed at that date (see, a contrario, Kapper , paragraph 74).
38. As the Advocate General observes in point 42 of his Opinion, the Member State in whose territory an offence is committed has sole competence to punish that offence by ordering, as necessary, withdrawal of the driving licence or of the right to drive, with or without an order that no application may be made for the issue of a new driving licence during a particular period.
39. To require a Member State to recognise the validity of a driving licence issued by another Member State on the ground that the holder of that licence has not committed any offence on the territory of the first Member State after issue of that licence, despite the fact that he is subject to a valid measure withdrawing his right to drive on the basis of facts arising prior to that issue, would have the effect of encouraging offenders likely to be subject to such withdrawal to travel without delay to another Member State in order to evade the administrative or criminal consequences of those offences and would ultimately destroy the confidence on which the system of mutual recognition of driving licences rests.
41. Consequently, the answer to the question referred must be that Articles 1(2) and 8(2) and (4) of Directive 91/439 must be interpreted as meaning that a Member State is not precluded from refusing to recognise, in its territory, a right to drive under a driving licence issued by another Member State to a person whose right to drive was withdrawn, in the territory of the first Member State, even though that withdrawal was ordered after the issue of that driving licence, provided that the licence was obtained during a period in which a licence issued in the first Member State was suspended and both the suspension and the withdrawal are based on grounds existing at the date of issue of the second driving licence.
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