NATIONAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK CONCERNING THE APPLICATION OF CROSS-BORDER INSTRUMENTS TO PERSONS WITH INTELLECTUAL AND/OR PSYCHOSOCIAL DISABILITIES IN LAW AND IN PRACTICE Criminal Code – placement in a psychiatric hospital. With the appeal, a request is made for the annulment of the appealed decision and for the issuance of a new one, with which the decision of the German court will be recognised and accepted for execution in Bulgaria. At the hearing of the Sofia Appellate Court, the concerned person was not present and the court considered the case in his absence. The man was regularly summoned to the first-instance court proceedings, but was not present, as he was placed in a psychiatric clinic in Germany by virtue of the decision, the recognition of which is requested. The concerned person has been assigned a public defender who effectively participated in the proceedings. The Bulgarian prosecutor considered that: the appeal is not grounded, the Law on the Recognition, Execution and Transfer of Judicial Acts for the Imposition of Deprivation of Liberty or Measures Including Deprivation of Liberty is not applicable; the legal systems in Bulgaria and Germany are extremely different; under the German law it was possible to convict a criminally irresponsible person with the imposition of compulsory medical treatment which is impossible under the Bulgarian law; the compulsory medical treatment is not a punishment under the Bulgarian law, which is why it is impossible to accept the sentence of the German court for execution. The Sofia Appellate Court found that as of June 2022, the concerned man is in the Mental Health Clinic in Ravensburg, Germany on charges of attempted murder in combination with dangerous bodily harm in the case of criminal irresponsibility. As of 22 December 2020, he had spent 698 days in the psychiatric clinic. From the notification sent under Art. 4 of Framework Decision 2008/909/JHA, it is clear that the placement of the man in a psychiatric hospital is not limited in time, but is subject to periodic judicial review of its continuation. In order to make its decision, the Regional Court in Stuttgart accepted that since the end of 2015, the man had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. 35 After considering the facts of the attempted murder, the German court accepted that due to his illness he was a danger to society, which is why he had to be placed in a psychiatric hospital. The defendant was present at the hearing of the case in Germany, on which the above decision was rendered. His placement in a psychiatric hospital, determined initially by the decision of the Stuttgart Regional Court of 19.1.2019 - 9 Ks 112 Js 38814/18 was continued. 36 The first decision states that the hospital where he was admitted has the status of a specialised psychiatric institution for prisoners. From the documents presented in the case, it is established that the concerned person was admitted and treated in He lived in Germany since the beginning of 2017, most recently living in a dormitory for workers in the town of Kornwestheim. On 18.04.2018, around 8 pm, he met another resident in the dormitory. Due to his illness, the concerned person was convinced that he recognised him as the person who attacked him in October 2017. He was of the opinion that the other resident and his friend were planning to attack him again. For this reason, the concerned man took a kitchen knife with a blade length of 12 centimeters and went to the room of the victim, who was standing in the corridor, in front of the door of the room with two pots in his hands. It was only because of this that he was able to fend off the multiple massive impact stabs that were repeatedly inflicted on his neck, body and abdomen with natural intent on the part of the convicted murderer. Because of this, the victim was wounded twice by the stabbings and suffered a severed tendon on the lower part of the left arm. The victim managed, with the help of his friend, to free himself from the perpetrator and run out of the building. The perpetrator pursued the victim on the street with the intention of continuing to run him over, chased him around a car, but was unable to catch up with him. Also, bystanders have stood defensively between him and the victim. 36 With decisions in case No. 2StVK 248/19 of the Regional Court in Ravensburg, Germany (3144 VRs 112 Js 38814/18 Prosecutor’s Office, city of Stuttgart, Germany) of 26.2.2020, enforced on 25.3.2020 and from 24.2.2021, which was enforced on 5.3.2021. 35 18 SLAVKA KUKOVA