Poland plans mandatory prison for drunk drivers who break court driving bans

What the draft proposes

A draft amendment to the Penal Code and Petty Offences Code, prepared by the Ministry of Justice and revealed by the daily Rzeczpospolita, would strip courts of several tools they currently use to impose non-custodial sentences on certain traffic offenders. The core change targets drivers who get behind the wheel while intoxicated or under the influence of drugs and who are simultaneously violating a court-imposed driving ban. For that group, the court would be required to hand down an unconditional prison sentence. Suspension of the sentence would remain possible only "in particularly justified cases."

It is necessary to introduce appropriate legal provisions that allow the criminal law to fulfil its function — general prevention, which is meant to deter citizens from committing traffic crimes or offences by showing, through the threat of punishment and the handing down of sentences, that breaking the law carries real and painful consequences.

The draft also eliminates the possibility of conditionally discontinuing proceedings for driving under the influence, for repeat offences of that kind, and for breaching a court driving ban. Currently a court may conditionally discontinue a case if the guilt and social harm of the act are not significant and the offender's attitude suggests they will respect the law. Under the new rules, even a first-time offender caught just above the legal alcohol limit would be ineligible.

Fines and community service taken off the table

A further change targets Article 37a of the Penal Code, which today lets a court replace a short prison term with a fine of at least 150 daily rates or a community-service order of at least four months. The ministry wants to block that substitution for anyone convicted of driving while intoxicated or breaching a court driving ban. The court would have no choice but to impose a custodial sentence.

Driving a motor vehicle after alcohol or drugs currently carries a penalty of up to three years in prison. Breaching a court driving ban is punishable by three months to five years. The draft does not alter those maximums; it removes the pathways that let judges avoid sending offenders to prison.

The trigger: a string of high-profile cases

The push for tighter rules follows several recent incidents that reignited public debate. In mid-July a verdict was handed down in the fatal crash on Trasa Łazienkowska in Warsaw. Days later, police on the A1 motorway stopped a drunk driver who already had two court driving bans. At the end of July another fatal crash involved a driver subject to a court ban. Minister of Justice Waldemar Żurek had signalled months earlier that tougher provisions were being drafted.

I suspect the lawmakers noticed that a signal is reaching drivers and society that the law doesn't work.

Sokołowski, a retired police inspector and former spokesman for the National Police Headquarters, told Fakt that courts already have the power under Article 244 of the Penal Code to impose three months to five years for breaching a driving ban. "One can only wonder why that provision is not always applied when a court ban is broken repeatedly," he said. "I believe that if it were applied, we wouldn't have this problem today."

Expert reservations

Not all legal experts are convinced the approach will work. Rzeczpospolita cites Professor Andrzej Sakowicz of the Criminal Law Codification Commission, who argues that current provisions already allow an adequate response and that mandatory prison terms may prove too harsh in some cases. Dr Grzegorz Bogdan of Jagiellonian University warns against penal populism, cautioning that harsher sanctions do not necessarily reduce crime and that courts stripped of flexibility may reach for suspended sentences more often instead of imposing heavy fines or community service.

Przemysław Rosati, president of the Polish Bar Council, called the draft "a clear signal that the legislator wants to remove from the roads, more consistently, people who pose a particular threat to safety." He added that the project severely limits the instruments a court can use to individualise a sentence, and that this should always give pause because individualisation is the essence of justice.

The direction of strengthening protection for road users is understandable and right. At the same time, the draft very significantly restricts the instruments that allow a court to individualise the criminal response. (...) The court will in many cases lose the ability to tailor its response to the specific circumstances of the case and the person of the offender. That should always prompt caution, because the essence of justice is precisely the individualisation of punishment.

What happens next

The draft has not yet been adopted, so no date for its entry into force can be given. It follows a package already implemented at the end of January 2026 that introduced lifetime driving bans (barring exceptional circumstances) and gave courts the power to order confiscation of a vehicle. The new proposal is framed by the ministry as a further step to close what it sees as the last loophole for repeat traffic offenders.