Type: Judgment

Authority: European Authorities: Euopean Union' Court of Justice

Date: 10/26/2017

Subject: The Court affirmed that Directive 2006/126/EC on driving licences and Articles 18, 21, 45, 49 and 56 TFEU do not preclude legislation of a Member State under which that Member State may refuse to recognise a certificate issued in another Member State evidencing its holder’s right to drive, where that certificate does not fulfil the requirements of the model driving licence provided for in that directive, even if the conditions set by that directive for issuing a driving licence have been satisfied by the holder of that certificate. Directive 2006/126 and Articles 21, 45, 49 and 56 TFEU do not preclude a Member State from imposing a penalty on a person who, despite having satisfied the conditions for the issuing of a driving licence as provided for in that directive, drives a motor vehicle in that Member State without a driving licence conforming to the model driving licence provided for in that directive and who, pending the issuing of such a driving licence by another Member State, can prove only that he has been granted the right to drive in another Member State by means of a temporary certificate issued by that Member State, provided that that penalty is not disproportionate to the seriousness of the facts at issue. It is thus for the referring court to take into account, in its assessment of the seriousness of the offence committed by the person in question and of the severity of the penalty to be imposed on him, as a potentially mitigating circumstance, the fact that that person had been granted the right to drive in another Member State, evidenced by a certificate issued by that other Member State which will, in principle, be exchanged before its expiry, at that person’s request, for a driving licence conforming to the requirements of the model driving licence provided for in Directive 2006/126. That court must also consider, in the context of its assessment, what actual risk that person posed for road safety in its territory

Parties: I

Classification: Citizens’ rights - Art. 45 Freedom of movement

Text