In today's conditions, having a driver's license is no longer considered a luxury, but a purely everyday option. At the same time, it should be noted that any vehicle (hereinafter referred to as a motor vehicle) is, first of all, an object of increased danger, and the regulation of any relations between road users is the prerogative of the state.
Therefore, the right to manage TK is a special right of citizens, the acquisition of which is possible only according to the established procedure, and the deprivation of which also has its own characteristics.
As a general rule, depriving a person of any special right depends on the type and severity of the offense committed by him and is possible as a measure of administrative or criminal punishment.
However, there are cases when a person, not having the right to drive a motor vehicle, while sitting behind the wheel commits another offense at the same time: he is in a state of intoxication or violates the rules of traffic safety, which caused bodily harm to other persons, etc.
So, in such a case, is it possible to deprive a person who did not have such a right or was deprived of such a right before?
Previously, established judicial practice established that courts, when considering both criminal cases and cases of administrative offenses, do not have the right to apply to the offender the deprivation of the right to drive a motor vehicle in cases when such an offender either did not have such a right at all, or had already been deprived of it before.
However, according to the latest legal opinion, set out in the decision of the joint chamber of the Criminal Court of Cassation as part of the Supreme Court dated 04.09.2023 in case No. 702/301/20, in the event that a person has committed a criminal offense in the field of traffic, provided for by the norms of the Criminal of the Code of Ukraine, the court has the right to apply to such a person an additional punishment in the form of deprivation of the right to drive a vehicle, even if he did not have such a right before that.
In the above-mentioned decision, the Supreme Court separately emphasized that persons who drive motor vehicles without sufficient theoretical and practical knowledge and without a driver's license create an increased public danger, and therefore the preventive purpose of additional punishment in the form of deprivation of the right to drive a motor vehicle in such a case acquires special importance.
Based on the analysis of the latest court decisions on road traffic offenses carried out by the specialists of Dynasty Law & Investment, it was established that, as of today, the above conclusions of the Supreme Court are already actively used in courts of first instance, including in the context of the possibility of depriving a person of the right to drive a vehicle for committing not only criminal, but also administrative offenses.
Thus, at present, a person can be deprived of the right to drive a vehicle in court even if he does not have such a right, regardless of the nature of the offense committed by him: criminal or administrative.