23.3.2015

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 96/6

(Case C-614/14)

(2015/C 096/08)

Language of the case: Bulgarian

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Sentenced person: Atanas Ognyanov

Other party to the proceedings: Sofyiska gradska prokuratura

Questions referred

1.Does it constitute an infringement of EU law (second paragraph of Article 267 TFEU, in conjunction with Article 94 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Articles 47 and 48 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union or other applicable provisions) if the court which submitted the request for a preliminary ruling allows the proceedings to continue before it after delivery of the preliminary ruling and delivers a decision on the merits of the case without disqualifying itself, a ground for such disqualification being that the court had expressed a preliminary view on the merits of the case in the request for a preliminary ruling (in that it considered certain facts to have been established and a certain legal provision to be applicable to those facts)?

The question is referred on the assumption that all procedural provisions protecting the parties’ rights to adduce evidence and to make submissions were complied with in the determination of the facts and applicable law for the purposes of submitting the request for a preliminary ruling.

2.If the answer to the first question is that it is lawful for the proceedings to be allowed to continue, does it constitute an infringement of EU law if:

A)the court reproduces in its final decision, without amendment, all the findings set out in its request for a preliminary ruling and declines to take new evidence or to hear the parties in relation to those factual and legal outcomes (with the court, in practice, taking new evidence and hearing the parties only in respect of matters not regarded as having been established in the request for a preliminary ruling)?

B)the court takes new evidence and hears the parties on all relevant issues, including those on which it has already stated its view in the request for a preliminary ruling, and sets out its view in its final decision on the basis of all the evidence adduced and after examining all the parties’ arguments, irrespective of whether the evidence was adduced before submission of the request for a preliminary ruling or after delivery of the preliminary ruling, and of whether the arguments were put forward beforehand or afterwards?

3.If the answer to the first question is that it is compatible with EU law for the proceedings to be allowed to continue, is it compatible with EU law if the court decides not to allow the main proceedings to continue before it and to disqualify itself from the case on the ground of bias, it being contrary to national law (which offers a higher level of protection in respect of the interests of the parties and of justice) for the proceedings to be allowed to continue, and where such disqualification is based on the fact that:

A)before delivering its final decision, the court had expressed a preliminary view on the proceedings in the context of the request for a preliminary ruling, which is permissible under EU law but not under national law;

B)the court’s final view would be set out in two legal acts instead of one (on the assumption that the request for a preliminary ruling constitutes a final, rather than a preliminary, view), which is permissible under EU law but not under national law?