As regards the international proceedings, the competence for the Restitution is of:
- the Office of the Public Prosecutor attached to the Court of first instance of the city where the corresponding Court of Appeal is established, according to the Regulation 1805/2018 and the Strasbourg Convention (1959);
- the Office of the Public Prosecutor attached to the Court of first instance, according to the Bruxelles Convention (2000), in the relations with the Countries which did not implement the Regulation.
Generally talking, the Public Prosecutor is the competent Authority, when it comes to request of restitution submitted during the pre-trial investigations; the Judge decides on the requests of restitution during the trial.
The persons entitled to request the restitution are the victims, as well any third parties who succeed in showing their rights on the goods to be restituted.
In general - without prejudice to specific additional conditions provided by law in relation to particular cases - the restitution - as well as the confiscation, of which the first is an alternative - does not affect the rights of third parties resulting from acts having an earlier certain date than the seizure.