Fiches Belges

Any item that may serve as evidence in criminal proceedings must be surrendered upon request to the court, public prosecutor or the police, this procedure applies both in pre-trial proceeding, as well as in trial. If the evidence is not surrendered voluntarily, the presiding judge (in trial) or public prosecutor (in pre-trial proceedings) can order its seizure (i.e. removal from possession of its holder by the police). The obligation to produce evidence does not apply to documents which contain information with respect to which producing a testimony is not possible (i.e. classified information or information covered by an obligation of secrecy) unless the person in possession of such document was relieved of the obligation of secrecy.

Directive 2014/41/EU on EIO (Art. 32) and for states that does not apply it, the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters 1959 and its Protocols and the 2000 Convention

MLA request/EIO may be sent directly to the competent judicial authority, which is: - in pre-trial stage of the proceedings: Regional Public Prosecutor´s Office having territorial jurisdiction (given by the place where the thing is located) - in trial stage of the proceedings: Regional Court having territorial jurisdiction (given by the place where the thing is located) In case direct contact of judicial authorities is not possible, the request must be sent to the central judicial authority, which is: - in pre-trial stage of proceedings: Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office - in trial stage of proceedings: Ministry of Justice

EIO – Czech and Slovak. Request under the COE 1959 MLA Convention – translation is not required on the condition of reciprocity.

As implied by Art. 12 of the EIO Directive, if applicable.

The requesting authority should be aware of the obligation stipulated in Section 80 of the Czech Code of Criminal Procedure (CPC). This provision stipulates that once the seized item ceases to be necessary for criminal proceedings (i.e. it is no longer needed to serve as evidence), it must be returned to the person who has surrendered it or from whose possession it has been removed, or in case several persons claim ownership of the item, it must be returned to the rightful owner (if their claim is true beyond doubt) or failing that it must placed into the custody of court and let the persons claiming ownership thereof assert their claims in a civil court proceedings. This restitution procedure only applies in case the seized item cannot be either confiscated or forfeited in criminal proceedings. It follows that the executing Czech authority should clearly state within execution of the freezing request, whether the seized item is to be returned to the Czech authorities once it has served its purpose within the criminal proceedings.