Criminal proceedings against Hüseyin Gözütok (C-187/01) and Klaus Brügge (C-385/01).
Date: 2003-02-11
28.  Therefore, it should be noted, first, that in such procedures, the prosecution is discontinued by the decision of an authority required to play a part in the administration of criminal justice in the national legal system concerned.
30.  In those circumstances, the conclusion must be that, where, following such a procedure, further prosecution is definitively barred, the person concerned must be regarded as someone whose case has been   "finally disposed of"   for the purposes of Article 54 of the CISA in relation to the acts which he is alleged to have committed.  In addition, once the accused has complied with his obligations, the penalty entailed in the procedure whereby further prosecution is barred must be regarded as having been   "enforced"   for the purposes of Article 54.
32.  Furthermore, it should be pointed out that nowhere in Title VI of the Treaty on European Union relating to police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters (Articles 34 and 31 of which were stated to be the legal basis for Articles 54 to 58 of the CISA), or in the Schengen Agreement or the CISA itself, is the application of Article 54 of the CISA made conditional upon harmonisation, or at the least approximation, of the criminal laws of the Member States relating to procedures whereby further prosecution is barred.
33.  In those circumstances, whether the   ne bis in idem   principle enshrined in Article 54 of the CISA is applied to procedures whereby further prosecution is barred (regardless of whether a court is involved) or to judicial decisions, there is a necessary implication that the Member States have mutual trust in their criminal justice systems and that each of them recognises the criminal law in force in the other Member States even when the outcome would be different if its own national law were applied.
38.  Article 54 of the CISA, the objective of which is to ensure that no one is prosecuted on the same facts in several Member States on account of his having exercised his right to freedom of movement, cannot play a useful role in bringing about the full attainment of that objective unless it also applies to decisions definitively discontinuing prosecutions in a Member State, even where such decisions are adopted without the involvement of a court and do not take the form of a judicial decision.
45.  In addition, applying Article 54 of the CISA to procedures whereby further prosecution is barred does not render Article 58 of the CISA nugatory.  Under the terms of Article 58, it is possible for Member States to apply national provisions which are broader than those not only of Article 54 of the CISA but also all those of the CISA which relate to the   ne bis in idem   principle.  Furthermore, it does not just allow them to apply that principle to judicial decisions other than those falling within Article 54 but acknowledges, more generally, their right to implement national provisions giving the principle a wider scope or to make its application subject to less restrictive conditions, regardless of the nature of the foreign decisions concerned.