Popped up from the heart: can a police officer order a drunk driver to go?
The fulfillment by a driver of a request by traffic police officers to move his car is not a ground for exempting him from liability for drunken driving. This is the conclusion reached by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. Experts and lawyers agree with the decision, but note that the police should more carefully assess the possible consequences, giving orders to drunk motorists. Details in the material "Izvestia".
"I was told - I went."
In September last year in Kazan, traffic police officers stopped a driver whose condition seemed suspicious to them. Since the motorist stopped right on the roadway and also stated that the car did not belong to him, the police officers asked him to move the car to the side of the road. As the case record shows, the secondary signs of intoxication were established by the traffic officers after the motorist had already reparked. During the breathalyzer test, the suspicions of the traffic police were confirmed: the device detected 1.74 mg of ethyl alcohol in a liter of exhaled air (if the level exceeds 0.16 mg, according to the law, the driver is considered intoxicated). As a result, the justice of the peace deprived the driver of his license for a year and a half and fined him 30 thousand rubles.
The motorist did not agree with this decision and tried to challenge it in higher instances. As an argument, he argued that the traffic police, who demanded to move the car, had provoked him to violate traffic rules. However, both the district court and the Sixth Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction upheld the decision of the justice of the peace. As a result, the motorist appealed to the Supreme Court.
Without provocation
Having considered the case materials, the Supreme Court concluded that the decisions of the lower instances were lawful. The arguments of the driver's lawyer that the traffic officers themselves provoked his client to violate traffic rules, the Supreme Court recognized as untenable.
"Knowing that he had consumed alcoholic beverages, and therefore by virtue of paragraphs 1.3, 2.7 of the Rules of the road he as a driver is prohibited to drive a vehicle, Ifanov T.A. (surname changed. - "Izvestia") had the opportunity to hand over the ignition keys to the traffic police officer to drive the car to the side of the road, - said in the decision of the Supreme Court.
The motorist's arguments that he offered the police to repack his car on his own are refuted by the video, which shows that after the appropriate gesture of the police officer, the driver takes out the ignition keys, gets into the car and drives it from the roadway to the curb, the Supreme Court found.
Thus, the Supreme Court did not see in the actions of the traffic officers any provocation of the driver to commit an offense. As a result, the complaint was denied.
He drove drunk and was left without a license
The driver drove the car in a drunken state even before the traffic officer who stopped him demanded to move the car to the side of the road, says the lawyer of the movement "Freedom of Choice," Sergei Radko. Therefore, the statements of the motorist and his lawyer about the alleged provocation, which forced the driver to violate traffic rules, are unreasonable, he says. According to the lawyer, it's just an unsuccessful attempt to avoid responsibility.
- The fact of intoxication was established, the driver did not dispute it. At the same time, it is obvious that he was initially driving drunk, and not suddenly became drunk after he was stopped by the traffic police. His maneuver at the request of the police officers to move the car to the side of the road, in fact, has no role in this case. Much less the request of traffic police inspectors to repark the vehicle cannot be considered as a provocation of an illegal act," Sergei Radko told Izvestia.
At the same time, the traffic police officers in this situation should have gotten behind the wheel of the offender's car and moved it to the curb themselves, the law will allow them to do so, the lawyer believes.
- If the driver had been less adequate, he could well have stepped on the gas and tried to escape from the inspectors. A chase would have begun, and it might have been necessary to use a service weapon. A drunk motorist could have caused an accident. Allowing him to drive even a few meters, the police acted, at least, imprudent, - said Sergei Radko.
"Turn on the fool."
Igor Morzharetto, a member of the Presidium of the Public Council under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, has a different point of view, assessing the actions of traffic policemen. In his opinion, by allowing the "suspicious" driver to drive a few meters to the curb, the police may have prevented a serious accident.
- Having demanded from the driver to move the car independently, the inspectors, most likely, proceeded from the traffic situation on the road. Probably, there was a dense traffic flow, and by demanding to quickly remove the car standing on the roadway, they excluded the probability that someone would crash into it. I think they made such a decision to minimize the potentially more severe consequences," he believes.
At the same time, Igor Morzharetto fully agrees with the position of the Supreme Court, which upheld the punishment for the driver. He, like Sergei Radko, believes that there was no provocation on the part of the patrol officers in the motorist's behavior.
- The driver's actions are more like an attempt to "make a fool of himself" and under the cover of an alleged setup by the traffic police to avoid responsibility. In this situation, both the Supreme Court and lower instances made a fair decision: the drunk motorist was punished as provided by law," Igor Morzharreto told Izvestia.
