Proposition 54K1820

Projet de loi modifiant la loi relative à la police de la circulation routière, coordonnée le 16 mars 1968, en ce qui concerne la confiscation et l'immobilisation des véhicules.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Franky Demon, Jef Van den Bergh

Submission date

May 9, 2016

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

seizure of goods traffic offence criminal procedure confiscation of property highway code road safety vehicle road traffic

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI ∉ Open Vld N-VA MR PVDA | PTB PP

Abstained from voting

VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

July 17, 2018 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteur, Mr. Cheron, refers to the written report.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I can confirm that there is a very good report available, which you can read quietly.

Now we are dealing with another issue, traffic safety. Traffic safety remains high on the agenda. With this proposal, we focus on a group of hard-learned road offenders who know the rules well, who repeatedly appear before police judges and who delve into the legislation to escape certain penalties. A trick used is, for example: the vehicle with which the infringement is committed, deliberately register on someone else’s name, for example that of the spouse or mother, or on behalf of a certain company.

In the latest draft law on road safety, which was approved here in the plenary session in March, the mark liability was already introduced, also for natural persons. In this way, another important step was taken to counter the impunity of drivers.

It is not just about avoiding fines. Our traffic legislation also provides for a penalty in the form of seizure of a vehicle, immobilization or declaration of seizure of a vehicle. However, this possible punishment could hardly be applied by the police judges by the conditions of the legislation. Such confiscation was, for example, only possible if the vehicle using which the facts were committed was effectively in the name of the offender at the time of the conviction. There was just the shoe. Often, those vehicles were quickly registered on someone else’s name, or they were sold between the offence and the conviction.

In order to do something about this, we have been looking for the best solution for a long time. A logical step would be to eliminate the ownership requirement. This, of course, is not so obvious, especially if the third party, of whom the vehicle is now, has absolutely nothing to do with the case.

After several debates and hearings in the Infrastructure Committee, we have come to a proposal amended so that the judge can issue an immobilization or a confiscation declaration for a vehicle whose owner is not the infringer but consciously or systematically leases the vehicle to a driver whom he knows does not have a driving license, has a driving ban, drives under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and so on.

In those circumstances, the owner of the vehicle also commits a traffic offence. It is forbidden to participate in this. In this way, we give the public prosecutor an important role. The latter will be given the role to investigate whether the owner acted in good faith or not. The owner risks a confiscation declaration only if it can be effectively demonstrated that he was aware that the driver systematically laid the rules on his arm.

Another element that emerged as a problem from the hearing was that the condition to have a six-month driving ban for a confiscation declaration was quite high and this would better be brought to three months. This aspect is also included in the present bill.

Finally, we have amended the bill with some articles to improve the road traffic law as approved here in March. There were some uncertainties. For example, I refer to Article 4, which provides a number of clarifications concerning the deadlines attached to the payment order. I refer to Articles 6 and 7, which provide for the procedure for determining the liability of the trademark, which was not included in the draft law. It is also important to clarify the repeat period for the punishment of recidive. You may remember that a few weeks ago there was something to do: some lawyers had found a backdoor in the recidive scheme, because it was counted from conviction to conviction. Smart lawyers can, of course, shift those convictions away from them for a while, but we have found an answer to that in Article 2 of the present bill.

This bill has a long history, before and behind the scenes. Technically it was not always very easy, but we have come to a good compromise, thanks to the colleagues for working on it. We have found a good balance between the right of ownership, which we do not want to touch too hard, and a good approach to road offenders on our roads. A good, appropriate approach to it is very important. We know the stories of people who were repeatedly banned from driving and who continued to drive, whose driving license was withdrawn while they didn’t even have it. For such drivers we cannot be strict enough. With this bill we give the police judges once again a good tool in their hands, namely to hit them in their mobility by possibly declaring the car confiscated.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, everyone will agree that in the field of road safety in our country we can give a tooth, even though several ministers have taken their responsibilities. At the Flemish level, a lot is invested in road infrastructure. Crusades are made conflict-free and black crusades are accelerated, while less popular measures are also taken. For example, the maximum speed on coastal roads was reduced to 70 and the driving training was reformed. Nonetheless, the accident statistics remain very high.

We have not yet achieved our goal of reducing the number of road deaths. Some drivers continue to make the road unsafe because they learn from their mistakes. They continue to drive without a driving license or under influence. A recent phenomenon is that of the wedding shoots. This leads to dangerous traffic situations, as drivers block all the driving lines on a highway. We must be able to act against it.

A hard core of traffic criminals remains with the feeling that they can escape the dance too easily, for example because they are constantly driving around with someone else’s car. The federal legislature can do something about this. Since 2016, a majority resolution on tackling flight crimes has been voted here in the House. In it, the government was asked to work on a number of smaller concrete measures to increase the chances of package. In the meantime, we have approved the establishment of a database of driving licenses and the introduction of the alcohol lock.

Another way to effectively address the increasing traffic crime is to extend the immobilization and the confiscation declaration, which is proposed with the text under vote. In case of immobilization, the use of the vehicle is temporarily prevented, for example by the use of a wheel clamp. In case of confiscation, the driver loses the right of ownership of the vehicle with which he committed the crime.

The present legislation provides for the extension of these two measures. We have talked about it for a very long time and have been looking for solutions for a very long time because our group could not find itself in the initial proposal to completely abolish the ownership requirement. We, together with the other factions, eventually reached a compromise in which owners who have made their cars available in good faith do not become the victims of what the perpetrator has spotted, while we can hit the persons who are in bad faith and knowingly and willingly make their cars available to someone who is not allowed to drive.

A owner who is aware of the fact that the driver cannot present a valid driving license or who knows that the driver is under influence could already be imposed a traffic fine, but the police judge could not seize the car itself. It is now up to the prosecutor to investigate whether the owner of the vehicle was in good faith or in bad faith. Therefore, it still has the freedom to go to call or not. In other words, the public prosecutor has an important role in this.

Furthermore, as Mr Jef Van den Bergh has already pointed out, the declaration of confiscation will also be possible from now on, in the event of an expiry of the right to send for three months instead of six months.

The police judges will therefore be given more resources in connection with the confiscation declaration and immobilization. They are given with the arsenal to deal with hard-learned traffic offenders, which they already have, even more possibilities.

We hope, of course, that they will use them in all wisdom. We have confidence in that. It is not in any case that they must make the confiscation declaration, but in the cases where it is necessary.

Finally, the text in the committee was amended to include some technical repairs in the law on improving road safety. The main concerned the ageing rules for cross recidive. With the proposed text, we resolve the problem where so far a specific serious infringement resulted in acquittal, because the limitation was not properly arranged.

The N-VA group is therefore very pleased with the present text. I would like to thank the members for their very constructive cooperation in the discussion of the proposal in the committee. We will therefore also fully support it.