The Ministry of Internal Affairs has published draft amendments to Article 12.8 of the Administrative Code that allow for suspending driving licences and imposing fines of 30,000 rubles on drivers who have some substances found in their body that are “components of medicines”, but are not ethyl alcohol, drugs or psychotropic substances. This is reported by Kommersant.
The Constitutional Court declared illegitimate the provision of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation (Article 12.8), which stipulated for administrative action against motorists stopped in a state of intoxication due to the effect of some medicines, at the end of November. The courts of the Russian Federation had been banned from punishing drivers if the medical examination showed traces of drugs that are not classified as psychotropic or narcotic (Phenibut, Phenazepam, some antidepressants, etc.)
“Previously, Russian regions had a contradictory judicial practice, when citizens were deprived of their driving licence even for a low content of such substances in the body. The Constitutional Court ordered the State Duma to “immediately” amend the Administrative Code and come up with a mechanism for punishing drivers who abuse drugs that cause intoxication and have stupefying effect. The traffic police, in turn, sent an instruction to the regions that while the amendments have not been adopted, materials in relation to such car owners should not be sent to the courts,” the newspaper writes.
A few days after the Constitutional Court’s decision, some draft amendments to the Code were submitted to the State Duma by LDPR. It is proposed that Article 12.8 of the Administrative Code refer to a separate list of medicines, the use of which will be prohibited for drivers, regardless of the product’s concentration. The list is to be be established by the Ministry of Health. According to the explanatory note to its amendments, the Ministry of Internal Affairs proposes to change the order of the Ministry of Health No. 933n on the procedure for medical examination by including the specific details on testing drivers for the use of specific medications.
The public discussion of the draft law of the Ministry of Internal Affairs will last until December 29.
