Young woman repeatedly flunked by examiners under criminal suspicion

Photo: Tairo Lutter

With details emerging about the driving test examiners criminally suspected beginning to emerge, the ones examined by such are justified in asking how they can be sure they were not being flunked intentionally for the purpose of personal gain. 

Postimees was contacted by a parent asking to remain anonymous whose daughter (18) was applying for driving licence last spring. Curiously, the young lady perfectly fine with driving while at training rides repeatedly flunked the driving exam.

«At the driving school, my daughter passed the exam, both theory and drive, at first try. Perfect driver. And then we went to ARK (i.e. the traffic register) where she was having driving exams so many times I lost count. Totalling 10 or 12 times.»

Weird ways for failure

Father said the daughter was trying to pass the exams under the very examiners now criminally suspected. The way they kept flunking her made the father wonder.

«They said «you did not feel confident enough» or «oh, you parked too close to the curb». Now what is that for an explanation?» asked the parent.

«We have paid the state fee for 10 or 12 times and I find we have been mistreated,» he added. Having read the names of the suspects in Postimees, it begun to dawn on him that perhaps his daughter was just failing to get the bribe hints.

The man says he would understand that if a driver makes mistakes she may flunk four or five times. But 12 times for trivial reasons – he can’t get that.

When finally his daughter got her licence, father says it just so happened that the examiner was one not among suspects. «What troubles me is that there must surely be those intentionally flunked, for some personal gain,» he says.

«I’d like to address the Road Administration management and ask who would compensate our damages caused by these people. For this cannot be right if someone has been flunked by these people. I got some sense of justice,» he said.

Officials willing to investigate

«10–12 failures is an exceptional case, but there have been some cases like that at theory exams and driving exams,» commented Meelis Telliskivi, Road Administration deputy director-general for traffic safety and public transportation.

He added that the administration records all driving exams and if anyone suspects that his performance was wrongly assessed, they can contest. In such cases, the examination department will review the video of the exam and will judge of the decision was just or not.

«When suspecting that an examiner under suspicion has, in the given situation, intentionally disapproved of the exam drives, we will be thankful for further details and will be able to review these drives and pass our judgement. We ask the individual have recourse straight to Road Administration for us to check the data presented by him,» said Mr Telliskivi.

On October 22nd, Central Criminal Police corruption crimes department detained five examiners at Road Administration traffic register Tallinn division, four of whom are suspected in repeated acceptance of bribes from those doing driving exams.  

According to Northern prosecutor’s office, one examiner is accused in arranging bribes. To Postimees’ knowledge, five former examiners have been filed suspicions: Jaak, Peeter, Vitali, Malle and Aivar (as the individuals are yet to be criminally charged, we only publish Christian names – edit).

On top of that, two persons were held such as did not work at Road Administration, and are also suspected in arranging of bribes. As requested by prosecutor’s office, one of the arrangers was taken under arrest.

COMMENT

Indrek Sirk, sworn lawyer

Decision regarding passing or non-passing a driving exam is an administrative act which can only be declared null and void if contested by the individual. They have 30 days to do that, and if during that time they do not do it, the train has departed – nothing doing.  

They have now learned that during some period of time or in certain situations these officials may not have been too honest, but whether the exam was flunked or not they learned immediately. Whether it was substantiated or it was outright harassment – they also learned that at once. They ought to have contested immediately.

It is not likely that, in this criminal procedure, they will be working through these outwardly legal actions. Definitely, Road Administration will not begin to investigate the possible flunking on its own initiative.

Also, in this state, there needs to remain some principle of legal certainty pursuant to which it is not possible to reverse absolutely everything. If something has been done, then that’s the way it will be and closed cases will only be revisited on very extraordinary occasions.