Court of Justice 6 February 2018, C-390/16 (Criminal proceedings against Dániel Bertold Lada.)

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Advocate General Bot opines that Hungarian national legislation establishing a special procedure for the judicial recognition of foreign criminal convictions—whereby a Hungarian court reclassifies the offence and adapts the sentence to Hungarian law before entering the conviction in the national criminal record—is incompatible with Framework Decision 2009/315/JHA, Decision 2009/316/JHA (ECRIS), and Framework Decision 2008/675/JHA, as it constitutes an impermissible prerequisite and review of convictions handed down by courts of other Member States contrary to the principle of mutual recognition enshrined in Article 82(1) TFEU. The AG further opines that recital 13 of Framework Decision 2008/675/JHA cannot be construed to permit such a national recognition procedure, since Article 3(3) of that instrument expressly prohibits any review or alteration of previous foreign convictions when they are taken into account in new criminal proceedings. Where conforming interpretation of national law proves impossible, the AG argues that the principle of primacy of EU law requires the national court to refrain from applying the conflicting national provisions, notwithstanding the absence of direct effect of framework decisions.AI