11.3.2019

Official Journal of the European Union

C 93/35

(Case C-8/19)

(2019/C 93/46)

Language of the case: Bulgarian

Referring court

Spetsializiran nakazatelen sad

Party to the main proceedings

Questions referred

1.Is an interpretation of national law, namely Article 489(2) of the NPK, which requires the referring court to adjudicate immediately on the legality of pre-trial detention in criminal proceedings instead of waiting for an answer from the Court of Justice when the referring court has made a request for a preliminary ruling concerning the legality of that detention, consistent with Article 267 TFEU and the second paragraph of Article 47 of the Charter?

If the first question is answered in the negative:

2.1.Taking account of the final sentence of recital 16 of Directive 2016/343, must the national court interpret its national law as meaning that, before issuing a decision extending a pre-trial detention, it must ‘verify that there are sufficient elements of incriminating evidence against the suspect or accused person to justify the decision concerned’?

2.2.If the accused person’s defence counsel challenges the existence of ‘sufficient elements of incriminating evidence’, with full and well founded arguments, in the context of the judicial review of the extension of the pre-trial detention, is the national court required to give a response, in accordance with the requirement of an effective remedy provided for in the first paragraph of Article 47 of the Charter?

2.3.Does the national court infringe Article 4 [of Directive 2016/343], read together with Article 3 [thereof], as interpreted in the judgment [of 19 September 2018, Milev (C-310/18 PPU, EU:C:2018:732)], if it justifies its decision on the extension of the pre-trial detention in accordance with the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights relating to Article 5(1)(c) of the Convention and clearly identifies the existence of evidence in support of the charge which, by nature ‘would satisfy an objective observer that the person concerned might have committed an offence’, and Article 5(4) of the Convention, in particular, by giving a decision on the objections of the accused person’s defence counsel on the legality of the pre-trial detention which is effective and based on the facts?

Directive (EU) 2016/343 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2016 on the strengthening of certain aspects of the presumption of innocence and of the right to be present at the trial in criminal proceedings

OJ 2016 L 65, p. 1.