Beshkov or the Long Road to the Principle of Social Rehabilitation of Offenders

This Insight provides an analysis of the first preliminary ruling (Court of Justice, judgment of 21 September 2017, case C-171/16, Beshkov) concerning some provisions of the Council Framework Decision 2008/675/JHA of 24 July 2008 on taking account of convictions in the Member States of the European Union in the course of new criminal proceedings. The Court of Justice was asked: a) to interpret the concept of “criminal proceedings” within the meaning of the Framework Decision; b) to explain whether or not this expression had to be connected to a finding of guilt; c) to make clear whether the procedure for taking into account a previous conviction could be initiated only by the Member State or also by the convicted person; and d) to point out the consequences that taking into account previous convictions could have on the manner of execution of a foreign judgment. In this context, AG Bot recalled the notion of social rehabilitation of offenders as a principle inspiring the Framework Decision that should have been considered in order to answer at least one of the questions referred to the Court. As the Court did not take it into consideration, the purpose of this Insight is to identify a possible interpretative path the Court might follow to acknowledge the social rehabilitation of offenders as a general principle of EU law.