FPN Not Legal?

[Kickstart]

Hi

From the Sunday Telegraph.

Pensioner challenges the power to penalise without trial

Two years ago, when Robert de Crittenden, a pensioner, emerged from Sandwell council offices in the west Midlands, he was irritated to find a £30 fixed penalty ticket on his windscreen. He little realised he was embarking on a battle which calls into question the legality of the entire principle of automatic penalties, which now earn local authorities and government departments hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

As a student of constitutional law, Mr de Crittenden was aware that under the 1689 Bill of Rights, it is fundamental to British law that no one may be fined or financially penalised unless they have been convicted by a court. When he inquired into the power of traffic authorities to levy automatic fines, he found it had been created by the Road Traffic Act 1991, in contradiction of the Bill of Rights.

But Mr de Crittenden was also aware of the historic judgment in the "Metric Martyrs" case in 2002, in which Lord Justice Laws pronounced that there were certain "constitutional statutes", such as the Bill of Rights, which cannot be set aside by subsequent legislation unless this is specifically stated. This was crucial to the argument whereby Laws upheld the conviction of the Metric Martyrs.

The law making it a criminal offence to sell goods in pounds and ounces was issued under the European Communities Act 1972. But the Martyrs' defence was that this had been overridden by the Weights and Measures Act 1985, which authorised continued selling in non-metric measures. By ancient tradition, when one Act says something different from another, the later Act, by the principle of "implied repeal", takes precedence. But Laws ruled that, since the European Communities Act was a "constitutional statute", it could not be overridden by the 1985 Act, since this had not made the point explicit.

After conferring with the British Weights and Measures Association (BWMA) and Neil Herron of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund, Mr de Crittenden concluded that, if Lord Justice Laws was right, the 1991 Road Traffic Act could not implicitly repeal the relevant clause of the Bill of Rights, because, as Laws stated, this was a "constitutional statute". Either the automatic penalty system was illegal; or Laws was wrong, in which case the Metric Martyrs should not have been found guilty.

Using this argument, Mr de Crittenden refused to pay his fine unless Sandwell took him to court. Two years later they have still not done so. But the significance of his challenge can scarcely be overestimated. Since his legal argument began to be widely circulated, ever more motorists have similarly refused to pay fixed penalties in towns all around the country – for example in Sunderland, where Mr de Crittenden was last week given another parking ticket, when he drove up to confer with Mr Herron in connection with this story.

The dilemma facing councils is stark. If they obey the law as it stands, they cannot impose parking tickets on hundreds of thousands of motorists without taking them to court. But if they do so, the court system would rapidly collapse. Furthermore the same applies to all the other official bodies that have jumped on the "fixed penalty" bandwagon, such as the Inland Revenue, which imposes an automatic £100 penalty for a late tax return.

If all these bodies imagine that, under the Laws judgment, they have a simple remedy – namely to rush through an Act of Parliament explicitly overruling the Bill of Rights – Mr de Crittenden has another trick up his sleeve. The Bill of Rights may have been enshrined in an Act of Parliament, but the Declaration of Rights on which it was based was a contract between the sovereign and the people. It is by that Declaration that the monarch occupies her throne and by which Parliament enjoys its power, and it cannot be repealed. Thus, if Laws is right, fixed penalties without conviction cannot be legalised. Either that, or the Metric Martyrs were innocent.

All the best

Keith
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[Mr.Everready]

Very interesting.
No doubt Tony and his cronies will sort it one way or another so he can screw us for just that little more blood.
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the undemocratically unelected mod of the Scottish section

[mchaggis]

That's quite an interesting idea, it should be good to see how far it goes. Somehow I think though, that if they were forced to do something about it, they'd admit that the metric martyrs were innocent, and then leave selling in imperial illegal.

Really speaking, I imagine that even if the government was ruled against by the Law Lords and the High Court, they'd still not do anything about it. The part about the mass disobedience bears something of a similarity to the planned mass disobedience over the hunting ban. If everyone does it, then the court system breaks down.
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I must not be a troll...
Mmmm, Guinness
Discovering the delights of Hammerite and a 3/4" brush.

[instigator]

To be perfectly honest, I hope he fails.

You pay for the parking, if you don't, you get fined(when you're caught) Where's the problem? The old codger took too long getting back to his car, its the stupid f*ckers fault.

I can say this as a biker as I can dump my bike anywhere really, but as a car driver too. I accept the consequences.

Chop chop and change the law.

Old man needs a woman in his life or a hobby at least.

(preparing to get slayed here )

EDIT: Just incase you take offence to this, I pretty much skimmed over the article but decided to talk about the first subject )

[Mr.Everready]

~Its not just parking tickets, its any and all fixed penalties that he's fighting.
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the undemocratically unelected mod of the Scottish section

[instigator]

Yeah, but if he wins, what on earth does that mean? You're all refunded your money from the councils?

Then your council tax will go up to re-couperate their mistake. Hardly worth it to me. It'll just be one of those things that'll blow over as they'll change the law

[MinhDinh]

traffic wardens are cunts, and one day i will go out on a killing spree with them being my only target hahahahaha.

[Scotsman37]

Either that Tony Blair will put you in jail without a trial as he currently is able to do since bypassing the Law Lords recently so as to incarcerate British citizens without a trial if deemed a threat to the State !

I know what you mean by Traffic Wardens because I remember a few months ago when I had a problem for 5 minutes until I got the bike going again. In that time within the 1st minute I looked up one of them appeared and just looked at me with disgust and 2 minutes later 2 more of them turned up. I just looked at them with anger and the engine fired up at last and I swore under my breath at them because they didn't even ask if I required any help or assistance.

[instigator]

scotsman, was that in glasgow?

[Scotsman37]

[Kickstart]

[Scotsman37]

Back door bloody taxes because that's all you get from this New Labour !

[MinhDinh]

we pay for taxes and insurance, but still have to worry about fines when parking somewhere for 2 minutes. the traffic wardens have no heart as they do not give a damn what excuse you have. i suppose the comminsion they get means it's almost impossible to get them to let you off. this is why i will be killing a few of them when i am old and have nothing much to lose, so the remaining ones will consider being a little bit nicer.

[CBRnick]

Ive tried this defense in the past and lost.
I used to have a large van for work that didnt fit under the height restriction bars that Kingston Council put over the entrance to all its open air carparksto stop gypsies from taking them over, and as such I was excluded from using all parking facilities in the town.

I refused to pay unless I was tried in a court.
They took me to court, I lost the case and had to pay the £80 fine plus £300 costs.

I wish him luck but like the metric martyrs, hes on a hiding for nothing.

[stinkwheel]

[Scotsman37]

I wonder if that would also cover farmed fish deposited into a land owner's river or would it only be for wild fish as there was no farmed fish back then ?

[stinkwheel]

[natv4]

[Danny]

[Kris]

[Scotsman37]

Yes your spot on because Tony Blair's cronies changed the system recently to include British citizens - no rights to a trial if deemed if suspected to being a terrorist!

[natv4]

right you chaps are. Just checked, I must have been sleeping. Its not imprisonment as such...but may as well be. House arrest which is still detention I guess.
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Travelling around the world...a bit at a time. Where am I now? / Visit my BLOG
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[jaffa]

[bizzie lizzie]

You're all missing the loophole created for anti-monarchists:

If the constitutional contract allowing the monarch to govern is broken by defying the terms of the Magna Carta, the Queen could end up getting her P45 . . . . .

[bizzie lizzie]

"Phi-leep! Phi-leep! One's pink slip has arrived!"