Law Information - Driving - Other Traffic Offences - SA

Driving While Disqualified

Date: 09/01/2009

The Law - TBA

The Maximum Penalty for Driving While Disqualified

A person who is found guilty of driving a motor vehicle while disqualified from holding or obtaining a driver's licence
or while the person's licence is suspended, may be gaoled for up to six months (2 years for a subsequent offence)
[ Motor Vehicles Act 1959   s 91(5)].

What the prosecution must prove - Driving While Disqualified

TBA

Possible Defences - Driving While Disqualified

TBA

The Court process - Driving While Disqualified

The Supreme Court has frequently emphasised that the ordinary punishment for driving while disqualified must be
imprisonment however, the court retains a   discretion   to suspend the sentence, but only in exceptional circumstances.
The Full Supreme Court (Police v Trevor Harold Cadd, John Patrick Hall, Attila Tibor Illes, Vasilios Vlachos and Mark Adrian Quinn (1997) Judgement No. 618, Mullighan J), held that the punishment should be imprisonment:
“In the ordinary case of contumacious offending by a first offender, but the circumstances of the offending or the offender or both may dictate some less severe form of punishment ...".