Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych v Council of the European Union.
Date: 2017-10-19
It must be borne in mind that, in an appeal, the Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to establish the facts or, in principle, to examine the evidence which the General Court accepted in support of those facts. Provided that the evidence has been properly obtained and that the general principles of law and the rules of procedure in relation to the burden of proof and the taking of evidence have been observed, it is for the General Court alone to assess the value which should be attached to the evidence produced to it. Save where the evidence adduced before the General Court has been distorted, that assessment therefore does not constitute a point of law which is subject to review by the Court of Justice (judgment of 18 January 2017, Toshiba v Commission, C‑623/15 P, not published, EU:C:2017:21, paragraph 39).
With regard, in particular, to the distortion of evidence and facts, the Court has repeatedly held that there is such distortion where, without having recourse to new evidence, the assessment of the existing evidence appears to be clearly incorrect or manifestly at odds with its wording (judgment of 18 January 2017, Toshiba v Commission, C‑623/15 P, not published, EU:C:2017:21, paragraph 40).
Furthermore, in accordance with Article 256 TFEU, the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union and Article 168(1)(d) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, an appellant must indicate precisely the evidence alleged to have been distorted by the General Court and show the errors of appraisal which, in its view, led to that distortion (judgment of 18 January 2017, Toshiba v Commission, C‑623/15 P, not published, EU:C:2017:21, paragraph 54).
In view of the broad scope of the aims and objectives of the CFSP, as expressed in Articles 3(5) and 21 TEU, and the specific provisions relating to the CFSP, in particular Articles 23 and 24 TEU, the fight against the misappropriation of State funds forms part of a policy of supporting the new authorities of a third State, intended to promote both the economic and the political stability of that State (see, to that effect, judgment of 5 March 2015, Ezz and Others v Council, C‑220/14 P, EU:C:2015:147, paragraphs 43, 44, and 46).
It should be noted that the effectiveness of a decision to freeze funds would be undermined if the adoption of restrictive measures were made subject to the criminal convictions of persons suspected of having misappropriated funds, since those persons would have enough time pending their conviction to transfer their assets to States having no form of cooperation with the authorities of the State of which they are nationals or in which they reside (see, to that effect, judgment of 5 March 2015, Ezz and Others v Council, C‑220/14 P, EU:C:2015:147, paragraph 71).
Having regard to the case-law cited in paragraph 63 of the present judgment and the discretion enjoyed by the judicial authorities of a third State concerning implementing arrangements for criminal proceedings, the fact that the appellant was the subject of a pre-trial investigation, conducted under the authority of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, and not of judicial proceedings, is not, in itself, such as to lead to a finding that the acts at issue are unlawful, based on the contention that, in such circumstances, the Council ought to have requested additional verification from the Ukrainian authorities concerning the allegations made against the person concerned, in a context where, as the General Court found in paragraph 114 of the judgment under appeal, the appellant had not put forward any evidence capable of calling into question the reasons set out by the Ukrainian authorities to justify the charges made with respect to him in relation to very specific cases or of demonstrating that his particular situation was affected by the alleged problems in the Ukrainian judicial system.
In that regard, it follows from the case-law that, in the event of the adoption of a decision to freeze funds such as that adopted in respect of the appellant, it is not for the General Court to verify whether or not the investigations to which the person concerned by that decision was subject were well founded, but only to verify whether that was the case as regards the decision to freeze funds in the light of the document or documents on which that decision was based (see, to that effect, judgment of 5 March 2015, Ezz and Others v Council, C‑220/14 P, EU:C:2015:147, paragraph 77).
Moreover, as regards the general situation in Ukraine with regard to the rule of law and human rights, referred to by the appellant, it must be held that he has not provided any concrete evidence of the effect of that general situation on his own particular situation in the pre-trial investigations conducted in his regard. In those circumstances, the appellant has failed to show that the General Court erred in law in paragraphs 144 and 156 of the judgment under appeal.