ruling: Cour de cassation No. 10688/2010, filed March 18, 2010. The car
conduct while intoxicated can be arrested - with a view to confiscation - even if it is leased, and therefore does not belong to the driver. The Fourth Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court (Case 10688/2010, filed March 18, 2010) extends the scope of further punitive confiscation as a penalty for those caught drunk behind the wheel, confirming the divestment of an Audi Q7 stopped at a road check on June 10 Subject to last.
The lower courts had had no hesitation in place and then maintain the seizure: the decision of the magistrate was associated with a few weeks after the Court of Review, which had rejected the defense argument that the vehicle was registered to third parties (the leasing company, in fact), and that the danger in delay (ie the risk of new violations of Article 186 of the Rules of the road) would be neutralized by the suspension driver's license.
The Supreme Court, in synthetic reasons for rejecting the further appeal, said that the property held under lease "belongs to the entity to which it was given the availability of material goods themselves, and even if it is not" property "This was like her a lot because it is in fact a" right to enjoy the good, on the basis of evidence which excludes the third. "
Thus, "the apparent legality of the seizure of a vehicle whose driver caught driving under the influence (...) they have availability under a lease." The same danger in delay of recurrence can be guaranteed only by the seizure, since the license suspension is a measure, by its very nature, temporary. Regarding the rights of the leasing company, the car is only release from seizure in front of the demonstration of the termination of the lease.
The ruling of March 18, then confirm a line of rigor in applying the confiscation of the vehicle, the security package introduced in 2008 (DL 92/08) for cases più gravi di ebbrezza (articolo 186 del Codice della strada) e per la guida sotto l'effetto di stupefacenti (articolo 187). La confisca crea una serie di problemi visto che, per principio generale, non può scattare quando la circolazione del veicolo avviene contro la volontà del proprietario o quando questi è comunque estraneo all'infrazione, che accade quando il mezzo è intestato a soggetto diverso dal conducente. È il caso non solo di leasing e noleggio, ma anche della cointestazione. Sotto questo profilo, si sono lette sentenze molto garantiste, come quella che un anno fa a Bologna escluse la confiscabilità solo perché il trasgressore era in comunione di beni con la moglie (in questo caso, la comproprietà esiste per law). But the Supreme Court now seems to have taken a far more restrictive.
This became a ruling from the 45,938 of 1 December 2009: according to the Fourth Criminal Division, so as not to trigger the confiscation of the vehicle must be fully registered to a third party unconnected because cointestato imply that the offender uses means not just occasionally, and then if they retain the use could still use it in a way that constitutes danger.
