Since March 14, 2024, the Police has been obligatory to temporarily seize a motor vehicle driven by the perpetrator at the time of committing a crime for which, in accordance with the provisions of the Penal Code, the forfeiture of the motor vehicle is ordered. Such a procedure has been provided for in Article 295 § 1a of the Code of Criminal Procedure Act (hereinafter: the Code of Criminal Procedure) introduced by the Act of July 7, 2022 amending the Act – Penal Code and certain other acts (Journal of Laws item 2600).
This change is important because until now the regulations did not provide for the situation of mandatory temporary seizure of an object. Article 295 paragraph 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure only provided for the possibility of temporarily seizing the movable property of a suspect in the event of committing a crime, if there is a fear of removing this property. Mandatory temporary seizure of a motor vehicle occurs in connection with the commission of a crime by the perpetrator, for which, in the event of conviction, the forfeiture of the motor vehicle is ordered. The issue of forfeiture of a motor vehicle is regulated by Article 44b of the Penal Code Act (hereinafter: the Penal Code), also introduced by the same amendment of 2022 as Article 295 § 1a of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Mandatory forfeiture of a motor vehicle is ordered on the basis of Article 178 § 3 of the Penal Code. in the event of conviction for:
- causing a traffic catastrophe (Article 173),
- causing a risk of a traffic catastrophe (Article 174),
- causing a traffic accident (Article 177 § 1 and 2),
- and also in the event of conviction of a perpetrator who, being intoxicated or under the influence of a narcotic substance, fled the scene of the incident, or consumed alcohol or took a narcotic substance after the incident specified in Article 173 § 1 or 2, Article 174 or 177 § 1 of the Penal Code, and before being subjected to an examination by an authorized body to determine the alcohol content or the presence of a narcotic substance in the body.
Therefore, in a situation where one of the above-mentioned offences is committed, the Police is obliged to temporarily seize the motor vehicle driven by the perpetrator at the time of committing the offence. According to Article 295 § 1a of the Code of Criminal Procedure. it follows that temporary seizure is not mandatory in the case of those offences in which the forfeiture of a motor vehicle is ordered only optionally in the event of the perpetrator’s conviction, i.e., for example, in the event of the commission of the offence of driving a motor vehicle in a state of intoxication or under the influence of an intoxicating substance in land, water or air traffic (Article 178a § 1 of the Penal Code) by a perpetrator who was in a state of intoxication, in which the concentration of alcohol in his body was not less than 1.5 per mille in the blood or 0.75 mg/dm3 in exhaled air or led to such a concentration. Introduction in Article 44b of the Penal Code. The institution of forfeiture of a motor vehicle was a response to the view developed in the Supreme Court case law that it is inadmissible to order the forfeiture of a vehicle as an object used to commit an offence, because a motor vehicle does not belong to the category of objects that can be considered to be used or intended to commit an offence, and it is the subject of an enforcement action for this offence (resolution of the Supreme Court (7) of 30 October 2008, I KZP 20/08, OSNKW 2008/11, item 88). Due to the fact that, under the previous regulations, ordering the forfeiture of a motor vehicle as an object used to commit an offence was not possible, the introduced Art. 44b was to become a loophole enabling the ordering of a „new type” of forfeiture with respect to the aforementioned vehicle, while Art. 295 § 1a of the Code of Criminal Procedure was to serve to prevent the perpetrator of the offence from getting rid of the motor vehicle before it was secured and, ultimately, before its forfeiture was ordered. The view that the general forfeiture regulations could not be applied to ordering the forfeiture of motor vehicles is not, however, unanimously accepted by the doctrine.
