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- You can't take it away and leave it: the Supreme Court has clarified the rules for confiscating cars from drunk drivers
You can't take it away and leave it: the Supreme Court has clarified the rules for confiscating cars from drunk drivers
A car purchase and sale agreement is not a reason for refusing to confiscate a car from an intoxicated driver if he actually continues to use it. This is the conclusion reached by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. Lawyers and experts are ambivalent about this decision. The details are in the Izvestia article.
The Prosecutor's Office is against
In May last year, the capital's traffic police detained Ifanov (last name changed. — Izvestia), who was driving drunk. During the inspection, it turned out that he had previously been deprived of his rights for refusing to undergo a medical examination. Since in this case it is no longer an administrative offense, but a criminal offense (Ifanov's actions were qualified under Article 264.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Driving under the influence of a person who has been subjected to administrative punishment or has a criminal record"), the car was recognized as material evidence and, according to current legislation, was subject to confiscation.
The Preobrazhensky District Court of Moscow sentenced Ifanov to a fine of 200 thousand rubles without confiscation of the vehicle. During the trial, it became clear that four days before the commission of the crime between Ifanov and Petrov (last name changed. — Izvestia) A purchase and sale agreement was signed for this car. Since, according to Article 264.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, confiscation is allowed only if the drunk car was driven by its owner himself, the court returned the vehicle to Petrov as the owner specified in the contract. The Second Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction upheld the verdict.
The Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia sent a cassation appeal to the Supreme Court demanding that the verdict against Ifanov be overturned regarding the fate of the physical evidence — the car he was driving. The document notes that there is sufficient evidence in the case file that the car in which the crime was committed belongs specifically to Ifanov, who subsequently, as established during an additional check, sold this vehicle. At the same time, the Deputy Prosecutor General drew attention to the fact that the sale of the car does not prevent the confiscation of Ifanov's property, since Article 104.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation provides for the possibility of confiscation of funds or other property in place of an item that cannot be confiscated.
Stand up, the trial is coming!
After reviewing the case materials, the Judicial Board for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (SC RF) concluded that the lower authorities had committed violations of the criminal and criminal procedure law, which affected the outcome of the case. In addition, they did not take into account the explanations of the Plenum of the Supreme Court regarding the issues of confiscation of property in criminal proceedings.
"In cases where, for example, in the case of a crime under Article 264.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the information provided by the accused about the alienation of the vehicle used in the commission of such a crime is refuted by the examined case materials (witness statements or documents indicating the absence of the transfer of funds to the accused and (or) the transfer of the vehicle itself to another the party to the contract, etc.) and the court will determine that the vehicle continues to belong to the accused, it is also subject to confiscation," the Supreme Court ruling says.
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation drew attention to the fact that the convicted Ifanov testified, according to which an agreement was reached between him and Petrov that he would transfer the car to the buyer only after repairs. This was confirmed by Petrov himself, who was a witness in the case.
"It follows from the case file that the car was not handed over to Petrov before the crime was committed, that is, in fact, the contract was not executed," the Judicial Board of the Supreme Court found.
As a result, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation overturned the verdict regarding the confiscation of the vehicle and sent the case for reconsideration to the court of first instance.
There is no precedent.
The Supreme Court gave the lower instance an obvious instruction regarding the future fate of the car that acted as material evidence, according to Sergey Radko, a lawyer for the Freedom of Choice movement. However, under other circumstances, the car would most likely have remained with the owner, the lawyer believes.
— In this situation, the Supreme Court proceeded from the testimony of the accused himself and the witness, who confirmed that, despite the purchase agreement, ownership of the car had not actually passed to the new owner at the time of the crime. Therefore, formally, the court, having overturned the verdict regarding the confiscation of this vehicle, is right," Sergei Radko told Izvestia.
If the fact of the absence of an actual transfer of ownership had not been established, then it would have been impossible to confiscate the car, the lawyer emphasizes. This would contradict the requirements of the law, according to which the seizure of a vehicle for state revenue under Article 264.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is possible only from the owner who committed this crime, he emphasizes.
Issues related to vehicle seizures from drunk drivers require additional legislative clarification, says Valery Soldunov, a member of the Public Chamber and chairman of the All-Russian Society of Motorists. Drivers who are caught driving drunk once intentionally register their car with another person in order to avoid confiscation in case of repeated detention, he notes. To close this loophole, a legal mechanism is needed in which, in such a situation, the car would have been seized anyway, the chairman of the SAI believes.
— And then let the criminal, who got behind the wheel drunk, decide for himself with the owner of the car the issue of compensation for the cost of the confiscated car. Perhaps such a prospect will force someone to be drunk from a trip," Valery Soldunov told Izvestia.
Given that only four days have passed between the date of the deal and the arrest of an intoxicated driver driving a "foreign" car, we are most likely talking about a fictitious contract, says Igor Morzharetto, an auto expert and partner at the Autostat analytical agency. Therefore, in this situation, the confiscation of the car is justified, he believes. At the same time, the auto expert is ambivalent about the legal possibility of seizing cars from drunk drivers.
— On the one hand, this measure serves as an additional stop factor for someone, forcing them to abandon a drunk trip. On the other hand, there are examples of countries where such a measure was in effect some time ago, but it was eventually abandoned. Practice has shown that car confiscation has a lot of nuances and features — it is simply impossible to provide for them all in one law. In some cases, the seizure of cars from such drivers conflicts with issues of property rights and other basic rights of a citizen," Igor Morzharetto told Izvestia.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
