Criminal proceedings against Maria Pupino.
Date: 2005-06-16
19. Under Article 46(b) EU, the provisions of the EC, EAEC and ECSC Treaties concerning the powers of the Court of Justice and the exercise of those powers, including the provisions of Article 234 EC, apply to the provisions of Title VI of the Treaty on European Union under the conditions laid down by Article 35 EU. It follows that the system under Article 234 EC is capable of being applied to the Court’s jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings by virtue of Article 35 EU, subject to the conditions laid down by that provision.
20. As stated in paragraph 5 of this judgment, the Italian Republic indicated by a declaration which took effect on 1 May 1999, the date on which the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force, that it accepted the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice to rule on the validity and interpretation of the acts referred to in Article 35 EU in accordance with the rules laid down in paragraph 3(b) of that article.
22. It is undisputed, first, that the judge in charge of preliminary enquiries in criminal proceedings, such as those instituted in this case, acts in a judicial capacity, so that he must be regarded as a ‘court or tribunal of a Member State’ within the meaning of Article 35 EU (see to that effect, in relation to Article 234 EC, Joined Cases C‑54/94 and C-74/94 Cacchiarelli and Stanghellini [1995] ECR I-391, and Joined Cases C-74/95 and C-129/95 X  [1996] ECR I-6609) and, secondly, that the Framework Decision, based on Articles 31 EU and 34 EU, is one of the acts referred to in Article 35(1) EU, in respect of which the Court may give a preliminary ruling.
28. As stated in paragraph 19 of this judgment, the system under Article 234 EC is capable of being applied to Article 35 EU, subject to the conditions laid down in Article 35.
29. Like Article 234 EC, Article 35 EU makes reference to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling subject to the condition that the national court ‘considers that a decision on the question is necessary in order to enable it to give judgment’, so that the case-law of the Court of Justice on the admissibility of references under Article 234 EC is, in principle, transposable to references for a preliminary ruling submitted to the Court of Justice under Article 35 EU.
30. It follows that the presumption of relevance attaching to questions referred by national courts for a preliminary ruling may be rebutted only in exceptional cases, where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of Community law sought bears no relation to the actual facts of the main action or to its purpose, or where the problem is hypothetical and the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted. Save for such cases, the Court is, in principle, required to give a ruling on questions concerning the interpretation of the acts referred to in Article 35(1) EU (see for example, in relation to Article 234 CE, Case C-355/97 Beck and Bergdorf  [1999] ECR I-4977, paragraph 22, and Case C-17/03 VEMW and Others  [2005] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 34).
33. It should be noted at the outset that the wording of Article 34(2)(b) EU is very closely inspired by that of the third paragraph of Article 249 EC. Article 34(2)(b) EU confers a binding character on framework decisions in the sense that they ‘bind’ the Member States ‘as to the result to be achieved but shall leave to the national authorities the choice of form and methods’.
34. The binding character of framework decisions, formulated in terms identical to those of the third paragraph of Article 249 EC, places on national authorities, and particularly national courts, an obligation to interpret national law in conformity.
35. The fact that, by virtue of Article 35 EU, the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice is less extensive under Title VI of the Treaty on European Union than it is under the EC Treaty, and the fact that there is no complete system of actions and procedures designed to ensure the legality of the acts of the institutions in the context of Title VI, does nothing to invalidate that conclusion.
42. It would be difficult for the Union to carry out its task effectively if the principle of loyal cooperation, requiring in particular that Member States take all appropriate measures, whether general or particular, to ensure fulfilment of their obligations under European Union law, were not also binding in the area of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, which is moreover entirely based on cooperation between the Member States and the institutions, as the Advocate General has rightly pointed out in paragraph 26 of her Opinion.
43. In the light of all the above considerations, the Court concludes that the principle of conforming interpretation is binding in relation to framework decisions adopted in the context of Title VI of the Treaty on European Union. When applying national law, the national court that is called upon to interpret it must do so as far as possible in the light of the wording and purpose of the framework decision in order to attain the result which it pursues and thus comply with Article 34(2)(b) EU.
44. It should be noted, however, that the obligation on the national court to refer to the content of a framework decision when interpreting the relevant rules of its national law is limited by general principles of law, particularly those of legal certainty and non-retroactivity.
45. In particular, those principles prevent that obligation from leading to the criminal liability of persons who contravene the provisions of a framework decision from being determined or aggravated on the basis of such a decision alone, independently of an implementing law (see for example, in relation to Community directives, Joined Cases C-74/95 and C-129/95 X [1996] ECR I-6609, paragraph 24, and Joined Cases C-387/02, C-391/02 and C-403/02 Berlusconi and Others  [2005] ECR I-0000, paragraph 74).
47. The obligation on the national court to refer to the content of a framework decision when interpreting the relevant rules of its national law ceases when the latter cannot receive an application which would lead to a result compatible with that envisaged by that framework decision. In other words, the principle of conforming interpretation cannot serve as the basis for an interpretation of national law contra legem . That principle does, however, require that, where necessary, the national court consider the whole of national law in order to assess how far it can be applied in such a way as not to produce a result contrary to that envisaged by the framework decision.
53. The Framework Decision does not define the concept of a victim’s vulnerability for the purposes of Articles 2(2) and 8(4). However, independently of whether a victim’s minority is as a general rule sufficient to classify such a victim as particularly vulnerable within the meaning of the Framework Decision, it cannot be denied that where, as in this case, young children claim to have been maltreated, and maltreated, moreover, by a teacher, those children are suitable for such classification having regard in particular to their age and to the nature and consequences of the offences of which they consider themselves to have been victims, with a view to benefiting from the specific protection required by the provisions of the Framework Decision referred to above.
54. None of the three provisions of the Framework Decision referred to by the national court lays down detailed rules for implementing the objectives which they state, and which consist, in particular, in ensuring that particularly vulnerable victims receive ‘specific treatment best suited to their circumstances’, and the benefit of special hearing arrangements that are capable of guaranteeing to all victims treatment which pays due respect to their individual dignity and gives them the opportunity to be heard and to supply evidence, and in ensuring that those victims are questioned ‘only insofar as necessary for the purpose of criminal proceedings’.
55. Under the legislation at issue in the main proceedings, testimony given during the preliminary enquiries must generally be repeated at the trial in order to acquire full evidential value. It is, however, permissible in certain cases to give that testimony only once, during the preliminary enquiries, with the same probative value, but under different arrangements from those which apply at the trial.
56. In those circumstances, achievement of the aims pursued by the abovementioned provisions of the framework decision require that a national court should be able, in respect of particularly vulnerable victims, to use a special procedure, such as the Special Inquiry for early gathering of evidence provided for in the law of a Member State, and the special arrangements for hearing testimony for which provision is also made, if that procedure best corresponds to the situation of those victims and is necessary in order to prevent the loss of evidence, to reduce the repetition of questioning to a minimum, and to prevent the damaging consequences, for those victims, of their giving testimony at the trial
59. The Framework Decision must thus be interpreted in such a way that fundamental rights, including in particular the right to a fair trial as set out in Article 6 of the Convention and interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights, are respected.
60. It is for the national court to ensure that – assuming use of the Special Inquiry and of the special arrangements for the hearing of testimony under Italian law is possible in this case, bearing in mind the obligation to give national law a conforming interpretation – the application of those measures is not likely to make the criminal proceedings against Mrs Pupino, considered as a whole, unfair within the meaning of Article 6 of the Convention, as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights (see, for example, ECHR judgments of 20 December 2001, P.S.  v Germany , of 2 July 2002, S.N.  v Sweden , Reports of judgments and decisions  2002-V, of 13 February 2004, Rachdad  v France , and the decision of 20 January 2005, Accardi and Others  v Italy , App. 30598/02).