Proposition 53K2074

Projet de loi visant à instaurer l'ordre de paiement pour les infractions à la législation sur la circulation routière.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

Sept. 2, 2010

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

highway code road safety road traffic

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR VB

Contact form ¶

Do you have a question or request regarding this proposition? Select the most appropriate option for your request and I will get back to you shortly.

Discussion ¶

March 29, 2012 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I would like to refer to the written report.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, a few weeks ago, at the presentation of the 2011 road safety statistics, I already noted that every week about fifteen people die in our traffic. Fifteen people per week. We cannot repeat that number enough and we need to keep up with it more and more.

Enforcement is the essential key to getting to safer traffic, along with, of course, all other possible efforts. Enforcement must of course also be followed by a credible handling of the fines. This is the subject of the present draft law. It is essential that imposed fines are also effectively paid, otherwise the entire support for the handling of fines is not threatened to be reduced. There should be no sense of impunity. Everyone should be treated on the same foot. Getting a penalty is paying a penalty!

Not only is a penalty a penalty, a breach is also a breach. Unpaid friendly settlements currently account for approximately 25 % of the workload at the police offices. Hence the decision of some parquets to no longer prosecute and suspend minor offences. In one judicial district, for example, offences are seized up to 137 kilometers per hour, while in another district it is up to 127 kilometers per hour. This entails a form of discrimination between one citizen and another, which is very dangerous for the support of our enforcement policy. An offence is an offence and should in no way depend on the place where it was committed.

In addition, it is essential that police courts can reserve their seating capacity for matters that are really important. For example, it cannot be that in Antwerp, more than half of the 25 000 to 30 000 cases processed annually by the police court are about unpaid fines. These are simple fines that have little discussion and are objectively determined, for example by speed cameras. The courts have more important cases. I think, for example, of driving under the influence of alcohol, accidents with dead or injured, driving despite degradation and so on. The released capacity should enable faster handling of these important files. The current bill is a good step forward.

However, we believe that more is needed. There is more work on the table, Mr. Secretary of State.

You also announced this morning that recurrence will be addressed in a better way. I would like to take this opportunity to raise the question of whether the entire system of immediate collection is not subject to evaluation. When an immediate collection or amicable settlement is paid – either spontaneously or in an earlier system after summoning and in the new system through a payment order – the offender is exempt from any further form of criminal action. There is an increasing impression that drivers of traffic offences buy off their fines mainly through those immediate invoices and the fines no longer have a steering effect on driving behavior.

I think we should keep in mind three specific cases in which the ball should be played shorter.

First, the recurrence cases. If a person is frequently caught on traffic infringements, the question arises whether he can continue to escape any further form of criminal action. If that person repairs his immediate inning every time again, the parket has no element to establish that recidive and can not deal with it properly.

The second case is alcohol violations. Alcohol violations up to 1.5 promile can be settled through immediate inning or amicable settlement. I wonder whether it is lawful that a person with 1.5 promille in the blood can escape any further criminal action by paying a simple fine and that the person concerned in such cases cannot be condemned to, for example, an expiration of the right to send. It is necessary to examine whether the legislator really had this in mind when outlining the system of immediate collection.

A third element is the specific treatment of beginner drivers. As you know, new drivers are subject to harder penalties during the first two years after obtaining their driving license, and they may be required to resume their driving training if they commit a serious breach during that two-year period. If such infringements are automatically handled through immediate collection or amicable settlement, there also arises the problem that the parquet has no sight of them and that these measures for beginners in many cases are a fairly empty box.

I therefore think that there are a number of reasons to look further at the whole system of fines, the way of working with immediate invoices and friendly settlements.

Since the present draft will involve a greater administrative treatment of fines from default payers, this discussion is now placed in the forefront. A revision of the entire system – both on paid and unpaid fines, as well as on the underlying principles and scope – seems to us necessary. In any case, we are satisfied with the design, as it predicts. We support it because it allows for a smoother collection of fines, liberates the capacity of the courts to hear for more important matters, reduces the workload of the prosecutors and guarantees equal treatment.

Mrs. Speaker, colleagues, Mr. Secretary of State, it is necessary that there are fines, because we know how it happens, also in the field of road safety. There must be a sanctioning government, which acts when the citizen fails to respect the traffic regulations.

No one likes to pay fines, but we assume that most fines are fair. There is support in this country for imposing those fines. Fines are also often used when one finds that there is suddenly a sharp increase in certain phenomena, speed or drunkenness, for example. Penalties are a very chosen tool.

We found that last year the number of road accidents increased seriously. One then comes to the conclusion that the figures on which one is based for carrying out a road safety and punishment policy are apparently not correct or could not be sufficiently analyzed. You have said that, Mr. Secretary of State, but also your Flemish equal knee, Mrs. Crevits, says the same.

So I am a little surprised that in recent years there has been a policy based on incomplete figures that cannot be interpreted. In this regard, prevention and punishment are linked.

I would like to make a few reservations on the policy as it has been carried out so far. It is said that those fines have been implemented and therefore have to be paid, but there has been some fatigue over the past years.

This is for several reasons. For example, people who do not have a parking ticket. At the same time, there is still the discussion whether the penalty for this can be collected by a firm and to what extent the verbalisant may have access to the data of the owner of the car.

When we look at that fatigue of paying, we have finally come to an understanding. To get to a faster and more efficient collection, it was unfortunately necessary both a bill and a bill, an initiative of Open Vld in the Senate.

It is strange, however, that the initiative of the Parliament must come to move on to this, while that has been a pain point for a very long time. What has prevented the government from moving to this efficient collection much earlier? It is strange that we have only seen the light now.

I’m not saying that we should call to pay as many fines as possible, but when you write out fines, it seems to me logical that they are collected efficiently. We have a government here that can collect taxes very efficiently, but apparently until now it was not possible for fines.

When it comes to the collection and imposition of those fines, a very bizarre phenomenon occurs. First and foremost, as regards the imposition of those fines, I conclude that the majority of those fines are paid by the Flamings. Are the Firefighters so many criminals? Maybe some people think so, and then I look at the FDF colleagues. When we talk about the payment of fines, however, there is a clear divide. If we look at where the funds for the traffic fines fund come from – I look at the figures for 2010 – we find that 83 % of the fines collected come from Flanders, not from Wallonia, because there it is only a small percentage.

Colleagues, how would that happen? This has nothing to do with criminal driving behavior. If we look at the number of road traffic casualties, the increases are mainly situated in Wallonia. In any case, there is no correlation with the number of fines collected in Flanders. However, 83% of the fines collected come from Flanders. This means that there are many more fine mechanisms in Flanders. Then I refer to the flitspools. In the past, we have seen beautiful tickets on the distribution of the number of flitspools. It is about more than 1,300 flitspalls in Flanders versus a hundred in Wallonia. It has been said that there would be a collection operation underway, but we must still harvest the first fruits or see the results, insofar as one can describe fines as fruits.

On the one hand, there is the aspect of the inning. The likelihood of being caught or flogged is much higher in Flanders than in Wallonia.

On the other hand, when it comes to the financing of police zones, we also record a shift stretch. Many police zones draw their resources from that traffic fine fund. When we look at the figures for Flanders – I must now go back a little longer in time, because I unfortunately do not have more recent figures – in the period 2003-2004, we find that, even though Flanders provides 83 % of the resources of the traffic fines fund, yet only 57 % of the traffic fines fund goes to the financing of police zones in Flanders.

And then, of course, we come to the conclusion that many police zones in Flanders are struggling with a staff shortage, that they are struggling with funding, with a shortage of resources. That is, of course, logical, if one in that traffic fine fund provides for a shift stretch, and it is a serious shift stretch: 83 % of the revenues comes from Flanders, but when moving back this drops to 57 %. The operation of the police zones suffers here.

This brings us to the essence of these numbers. I must note that in respect of the financing of the police zones in Wallonia only 16 euros per inhabitant is paid, while the Flaming can cough more than 24,7 euros.

Mr. Secretary of State, I suspect that it is right for someone to be fined and that those fines will now be collected more efficiently. Nevertheless, I would like to insist on working towards a fairer and more justified distribution of fines. You must not only be awake of that inning, but you must also be awake that the distribution of those fines is done in the same, correct way.

Mevroux the Chairman, Mr. Secretary of State, colleagues, this bill on the payment order gave rise to few comments in the Infrastructure Committee. The treatment has gone quickly. The text was previously thus long overwhelmed in the Senate, where also the opinion of the Council of State was obtained. I would like to mention again my colleague Martine Taelman, the initiator of the original bill.

Colleagues, this bill has a dual purpose, first, to prevent traffic fines from remaining unpaid and, second, to relieve the burden of our police parks and police courts.

In this context, I would like to make it clear again that for Open Vld the better collection of traffic fines is an important item, but that this also applies to the better collection of judicial fines, the fines imposed by correctional courts and by the courts of appeal.

Therefore, we continue to knock on that other nail, in particular better collection of judicial fines. This must be achieved through a better cooperation between, on the one hand, the Judiciary, which imposes penalties with fines, and, on the other hand, the Finance, which is responsible for the collection, and all this under the name of combating impunity.

Mr. Secretary of State, you said in the committee that this legislative change would mean an additional revenue of approximately 37 million euros, which is a significant amount. We will be able to evaluate at the end of next year whether that amount was effectively reached.

I would like to briefly outline the following advantages of this bill. The law enters into force on 1 January 2013 and includes the following important benefits.

First, the cost of collecting traffic fines will decrease significantly, as a lot of court fees, summons and notifications will no longer be needed.

Secondly, the rights of the infringer are not affected. Mr. Secretary of State, you have received questions in this regard in the committee and you have confirmed that the offender with this legislative amendment will still have sufficient resources to enforce his rights. I would like to call for the clarity of the texts to be drawn up, so that offenders will understand well how they can object.

Third, the authority of the prosecutor’s office, which will still decide autonomously whether or not a friendly settlement is proposed, is also not affected.

Last but not least, this legislation offers a response to the current system that is kaduuk due to the increasing number of immediate inputs that cannot be properly processed by the police and the prosecutor’s office. The system is also damaged due to the lower willingness of offenders to voluntarily switch to payment.

Hence, colleagues, Mr. Secretary of State, that the Open Vld will of course approve this proposal.

I also refer to what colleague Van den Bergh said. This is a call to you, Mr. Secretary of State, in the debate on the road safety plan that we will conduct on Wednesday after the Easter holiday, to also pay attention to the problem of immediate collection and friendly settlements. The question is whether this is not possible in too many cases today.

I would like to add that the judicial treatment of traffic cases has many disadvantages. I think, for example, of the fact that a police judge who imposes a sentence and who possesses the criminal record of the offender cannot find out whether a previously imposed sentence was actually executed. For example, the criminal record lists a fine of 50 euros, but it cannot be inferred whether that fine was paid or not.

I would like to say that the handling of traffic matters needs to be improved on many points. This will ⁇ be discussed after the Easter holiday in the Infrastructure Committee.

I would like to thank the Commissioners. The proposal underlying this draft was submitted several years ago by Senator Martine Taelman. The text has been adjusted by the Senate on several points and I think it is now really moving in the right direction. In fact, it ensures that the follow-up of the payment of the fines will be performed in a better way. In short, I think the design creates added value.

As already stated by several MEPs, this is a step in the right direction, but there is still a lot to be done in terms of road safety. We will ⁇ continue to cooperate on this.

This is a step in the right direction, which creates more efficiency while ⁇ ining the rights of defence. The rights of citizens are guaranteed while increasing the efficiency of sanctions. This is a step in the right direction, for which I once again thank all the Parliamentarians involved.