Disqualification: Concurrent or Consecutive?
| Published date | 01 July 1965 |
| Date | 01 July 1965 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201836502900310 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Disqualification: Concurrent
or Consecutive?
IT is proposed to consider in this article whether courts
ordering a disqualification from driving under the Road
Traffic Act, 1962, s.g, may impose consecutive terms in all
cases or whether they are limited to doing so in cases where
s.S (5) applies ('infra'). Some text-book writers had taken
the view that disqualifications must be concurrent in every
case save where
s.S(S)
applies
but
doubt would appear to have
been cast upon this view by R. vMcNulty (1964) 3
All
E.R.
713, of which we printed areport at page 104 of this volume.
It
will be submitted, however, after examining the facts of that
decision, that disqualifications may still not be consecutive,
save where s.5(5) applies.
The
Road Traffic Act, 1962, provides in s.5(I) that,
where a person is convicted of an offence carrying compulsory
disqualification,
"the
court shall order him to be disqualified
for such period not less than twelve months as the court
thinks fit", unless there are special reasons. By
S.5(2),
where
a person is convicted of an offencecarrying optional disquali-
fication,
"the
court may order him to be disqualified for such
period as the court thinks fit." Neither sub-section indicates
at what time the disqualification commences. By s.5(3),
hereinafter called the "totting-up provision", a person
convicted of an offence carrying disqualification shall be
disqualified for at least six months
if
he has, within the three
years preceding the offence and since 29th May, 1963, been
convicted on not less than two occasions of offences which
have been endorsed on his driving licence, unless, having
regard to all the circumstances, the court is satisfied that
there are grounds for mitigating such punishment. Section
5(5)
reads:
"(5)
The
period of any disqualification imposed under [s.s
219
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