2023-12-04 22:40:06
The Assembly reinstated on Monday, at first reading, the obligation for motorists to pay their parking fine in order to challenge it, which had been deemed unconstitutional in September 2020.
The text was approved by forty-five votes to twenty-three. The majority, two out of three deputies from the Les Républicains group and the Liot group voted for, the left mainly against, and the National Rally abstained. It provides for the implementation of this reform on a date set by decree, no later than June 30, 2026.
The transpartisan bill, presented by MP Daniel Labaronne (Renaissance), “restores the obligation to pay the post-parking fee in advance [nouveau nom des amendes] and its possible increase, within the limit of a ceiling fixed by decree in the Council of State, as a condition for the admissibility of a contentious appeal, except in exceptional cases..
The exceptions retained are the theft or destruction of the vehicle, theft of the motorist’s registration plate, the transfer of the vehicle, the receipt of low income, as well as the fact of benefiting from a parking card for People with Disabilities.
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Judgment deadlines of around two years
The Constitutional Council, seized of a priority question of constitutionality, had deemed the prior payment of the fine unconstitutional due to the absence of a provision guaranteeing that the amount of the sum to be paid and its possible increase was not too high, and the absence of exceptions taking into account particular situations.
In his introductory remarks, Mr. Labaronne underlined that this principle of prior payment had been voted on, “on the one hand, to avoid delaying appeals for the purposes of good administration of justice, and, on the other hand, to guarantee the rapid recovery of revenue for the communities concerned”.
The censorship of the Constitutional Council caused an increase in the number of pending cases, which stood, at the end of 2022, at more than 183,000 files, with “judgment deadlines of around two years”a “complicated situation which also penalizes our fellow citizens”.
Speakers opposed to the text denounced a limitation of the right to appeal, in a context where the automation of reading number plates increases fines. From 2018 to 2022, the number of fines increased from 7.8 to 13.7 million, for “reach a new revenue record of around 340 million euros”according to André Chassaigne (PCF).
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Parking fines can (temporarily) be contested before being paid
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