Drunk driving and its criminality

                                                             Driving under the influence of alcohol

Art. 343b, para. 1 of the Criminal Code "Whoever drives a motor vehicle with a concentration of alcohol in his blood above 1.2 per thousand, established in due course, shall be punished by imprisonment from one to three years and a fine of two hundred up to one thousand BGN.''

 Paragraph 2 "Whoever drives a motor vehicle with a concentration of alcohol in his blood above 0.5 parts per thousand, established in due course, after he has been convicted with an effective sentence for the act under paragraph 1, is punishable by imprisonment from one to five years and a fine from five hundred to fifteen hundred BGN.''

The Criminal Code, as well as in other legal acts, does not define the concept of drunkenness. A drunken state within the meaning of the Penal Code is present when the driver, due to the use of alcohol, has fallen into a state of unfitness to properly and safely drive the motor vehicle. The law has in mind not any state of unfitness due to the use of any substances, but a drunken state as a result of the use of alcohol.

According to the prevailing opinion in medical science, the driver is in a drunken state when, at the time of the accident, there is an alcohol content in his blood of no less than 0.5 percent. The plenum takes the view that in the presence of such an alcohol concentration, even if it is not related to external manifestations of driving, the psychophysiological state of a driver is affected and he is not adapted to drive a motor vehicle safely.

The Penal Code does not state that the drunken state does not apply only to motor vehicle drivers, because this text reflects the main elements of the composition of the committed crime. It is correct to assume that the drunken state also applies to the subjects of transport crimes, i.e. also to transport employees and workers, when they carry out their operation or repair activities and commit violations of the rules of operation or the requirement for good repair quality .

In case of culpable causing of constitutive consequences, the drunken state of the perpetrator is sufficient to qualify the act as a crime under the Criminal Code. It is not required that there be a causal connection between the drunken state of the perpetrator and the violations committed by him of the rules of traffic or operation or of the requirements for good repair quality, that is, that they are the result of the drunken state. Therefore, it is not necessary to prove such a causal relationship.

 In the presence of a drunken state, a violation of the traffic rules, if there are no compensatory consequences and a causal connection between the violations of the traffic rules and the consequences, the perpetrator will bear administrative and not criminal liability. The perpetrator bears increased criminal liability also when he is in a drunken state and he is not personally driving the motor vehicle, but has ceded it to another person who is incapacitated or has consumed alcohol and this person commits a violation of the traffic rules and causes compensatory consequences. Here, too, a causal connection cannot be sought between the drunken state of the perpetrator and the violation of the traffic rules, expressed in yielding the vehicle to an incapacitated or intoxicated person. Violations of the prohibition to relinquish control of a motor vehicle to an incapacitated person or a person who has consumed alcohol, in the event that the person taking control of the motor vehicle culpably caused structural consequences, is a sufficient basis for the responsibility of the relinquishing person.

The person relinquishing control of the motor vehicle is obliged to make sure that the person to whom he is relinquishing control has a driving license and has not consumed alcohol.

 However, when the person giving way was not in a drunken state, even though the person causing the constitutive consequences was in a drunken state, he will not bear criminal responsibility for committing a crime related to transport while intoxicated because he objectively was not in such a state.

The drunken state of the perpetrator can be established by all evidentiary means - chemical examination of the alcohol concentration in the blood and urine, with medical expertise on the alcohol concentration, when no chemical examination has been done, but there is evidence of alcohol consumption, witness statements, etc.

 Drunkenness can also be established only by witness testimony, if it is not possible to collect other evidence. In these cases, some features of the outwardly visible state or manifestations of children should be taken into account, such as the typical disturbance of speech, body posture, gait, adequacy to the environment and phenomena, and others, in order to be able to make a positive conclusion that the perpetrator he was actually drunk.