Request for a preliminary ruling from the Spetsializiran nakazatelen sad (Bulgaria) lodged on 28 June 2022 — Criminal proceedings against VB

(Case C-430/22)

(2022/C 408/37)

Language of the case: Bulgarian

Referring court

Spetsializiran nakazatelen sad

Party to the main proceedings

VB

Questions referred

Must the second sentence of Article 8(4) of Directive 2016/343 (1) be interpreted as obliging a national court which convicts an accused person in absentia, without the conditions of Article 8(2) being met, to make express reference to the accused person’s right to have the proceedings reopened, to which he or she is entitled under Article 9 of that directive, in order that he or she can be informed of that right at a later stage, in particular when he or she is detained for the purpose of executing the sentence? The question arises in the light of the fact that national law provides neither for the person convicted in absentia to be informed of his or her right to have the proceedings reopened when he or she is detained for the purpose of executing the sentence, nor for the involvement of a court in the issuing of a European arrest warrant for the purpose of executing the sentence.

Must the second sentence of Article 8(4) of Directive 2016/343, and in particular the phrase ‘also informed of the possibility to challenge the decision and of the right to a new trial or to another legal remedy, in accordance with Article 9’, be interpreted as meaning that such information concerns a formally recognised right to have the proceedings reopened, or does it concern the right to request such reopening, whereby the substance of the request must then be examined?

(1)  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).