Press Release: The Advocate General’s Opinion in Case C-297/07. Staatsanwaltschaft Regensburg v Klaus Bourquain

Advocate General Ruiz-Jarabo proposes that the principle that a person may not be tried twice for the same act should be extended to a death sentence which could never have been enforced. In his view, a person whose trial has been finally disposed of in one State in the Schengen Area may not be tried in another for the same acts when, by virtue of the law of the State in which the sentence was pronounced, the penalty imposed could never have been enforced.