Abstract

The Court of Justice finds Article 54 of the Convention on the application of the Schengen Agreement compatible with Article 50 of the Charter of fundamental rights of the EU. According to the Court, the penalty enforcement condition set out by Article 54 is a legitimate restriction to the provision of the Charter, under Article 52(1) of the Charter itself. Moreover, the wording of Article 54 does not entail an infringement of the principle according to which the scope of the rights enshrined in the Charter must be the same as those laid down by the European Convention on Human Rights. In fact, Article 54 applies to transfrontier situations, while Article 4 of the Protocol 7 annexed to the ECHR only refers to double jeopardy within the same jurisdiction. The judgment under consideration therefore is an important step towards a uniform and coherent view of the "ne bis in idem" principle in the multilevel European system of protection of fundamental rights.