The sentence of the Contentious-Administrative Court number 2 of Burgos by which the DGT must return the points to a trucker sets a precedent in terms of refunds of claimed fines.
After the case of Castilla y León, the organization Automovilistas Europeos Asociados (AEA) calculates that around 1,500,000 drivers may suffer the same fate if they claim those sanctions that meet the requirements contemplated in this ruling.
What sanctions can be claimed?
The General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) must return the subtracted points from the driver’s license when an economic sanction that entails a loss of them be annulled by the Treasury.
This is the case of the aforementioned driver from Burgos, to whom the DGT must return the points withdrawn after the regional Economic-Administrative Court, which depends on the Ministry of Finance, annulled the economic part of the sanctions imposed.
Because? Because the agency considered that they had not been correctly notified because they were sent to a different address from that of the affected person.
The Court acknowledges that its competence is limited to the economic part of the sanction, but also understands that “if a State body has considered that the notification made in that file was not correctly made”, It affects both the monetary part and the points of the card because “they cannot take different paths: the sanctioning resolution is unique and could not be understood not notified for one thing and yes for the other”.
In other words, if the Treasury annuls a fine because it was notified incorrectly, an error is also contemplated in the notification of the points deducted from the card, which should annul both sanctions.
The AEA applauds the sentence
The president of the AEA, Mario Arnaldo, has defended that “it cannot be” that the Treasury annuls the economic part of a fine and, nevertheless, the DGT maintains the deduction of the points.
“This ruling is a very important legal precedent (…) From now on, if a fine is not well notified, not only must the economic part of the sanction be annulled, but also that of the points that accompanies it,” added Arnaldo.