In an urgent preliminary ruling, the Court of Justice holds that victim rights directives do not extend to Italy’s extraordinary in absentia review mechanism when the victim did not join as civil party. Italy may also require direct evidence of deliberate evasion before cancelling an in absentia conviction.
The Court of Justice delivered its judgment in Case C-24/26 PPU on 23 April 2026. The case arose from Italian criminal proceedings involving a person convicted in absentia. The national court invoked the urgent preliminary ruling procedure because the outcome directly affected the liberty of a person in detention. The Court answered two questions, the first one concerning victim rights, and the second concerning the defendant’s right to a new trial.
Italian criminal procedure includes a mechanism called Article 629-bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CPC), which allows persons convicted in absentia to apply for an extraordinary review of their conviction. The mechanism exists to remedy situations where the defendant was unaware of the proceedings or was unable to attend through no fault of their own, and when the review succeeds, the court can order a new trial.
To obtain a new trial under Article 629-bis, Italian law requires the applicant to show that the original conviction was delivered in their absence, as long as it can be proven that the defendant had no knowledge of the proceedings, or that they could not attend due to circumstances beyond their control. Italian law then imposes the condition that if the prosecution argues the defendant voluntarily evaded the proceedings, the court requires direct proof of that evasion before it can deny the new trial, passing the burden of proof to the prosecution.
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The national court asked whether Directive 2012/29/EU on victim rights required Italy to inform crime victims of the Article 629-bis extraordinary review. Articles 6, 10, and 18 of the Directive confer rights to receive information about proceedings, to participate in hearings, and to receive protection during proceedings. The referring court needed to know whether those rights extended to the Article 629-bis mechanism.
The Court said no. Directive 2012/29 does not require Italy to notify crime victims of the extraordinary in absentia appeal. The Directive’s information and participation rights apply to criminal proceedings. But the extraordinary review under Article 629-bis is a sui generis post-conviction mechanism. It does not constitute an ordinary stage of criminal proceedings within the scope the Directive covers. The victim’s decision not to join as a civil party also reinforced that conclusion. A victim who did not join as civil party accepted a more limited procedural role. The Directive does not extend full procedural rights to that victim for post-conviction remedies of this specific character.
The Court drew the line at the end of the original conviction proceedings. Once those proceedings concluded, the Directive’s obligations in relation to that case were fulfilled. The extraordinary review mechanism, precisely because it is available only to defendants who were absent from the original proceedings, falls outside the scope of the Directive’s information and participation framework as it applies to victims.
The second question concerned the defendant’s position. To benefit from Article 629-bis and obtain a new trial, Italian law required direct proof that the defendant voluntarily evaded the proceedings. The defendant in the main proceedings argued that EU law, specifically Directive 2016/343 on the presumption of innocence and the right to be present at trial, required Italy to accept indirect or objective evidence of evasion. Demanding direct proof, he argued, set the bar too high and made the right to a new trial practically inaccessible.
The Court rejected this argument clearly, under Articles 8(1) and 9(1) of Directive 2016/343, which do not preclude Italian national law from requiring a new trial only where direct proof of voluntary evasion is absent. The Directive sets minimum standards. Italy is free to maintain a higher standard of protection for defendants than the Directive requires, and therefore requirement for direct evidence of evasion is not a violation of EU law. Proof of voluntary evasion can rely on indirect or objective evidence to meet the national standard. The Directive does not dictate the evidentiary threshold, so Italy can exercise its national procedural autonomy within the minimum floor the Directive establishes.
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The urgent preliminary ruling procedure applies when a person’s liberty is at stake and the case outcome depends on the Court’s answer. Case C-24/26 PPU met both conditions. The person whose conviction was under review was in detention. The national court could not proceed with the Article 629-bis review without guidance on both questions.
This judgment now closes a practical question that Italian courts have faced since the introduction of Article 629-bis, as Italian judges know that neither victim rights law nor defendants’ fair trial rights require Italy to modify its extraordinary in absentia review procedure. The current design is compatible with EU law. For victims who did not join as civil party, no information right attaches to the post-conviction remedy. For defendants, the evidentiary threshold Italy applies to prove voluntary evasion falls within Italy’s legislative discretion.
