Safe Speed Forums

http://www.metricmartyrs.co.uk/Newsdisplay.aspx?id=184

[I can't currently get this link to work, it was working an hour ago]

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 18:48

PR332: Metric Martyrs parking case - a fudgement

news: for immediate release

In the Royal Courts of Justice today, the Judge refused Robin de Crittenden
oral application for Judicial Review, declaring that, "the Bill of Rights does
not apply to parking as parking tickets are not fines or forfeitures."

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "This is a perverse ruling apparently intended to
preserve the status quo. In my opinion, the law has been bent to fit the
desired outcome. It's not a judgment - it's a fudgement."

"It's a very bad day for justice, but a good day for the English language,
which surely must gain the word 'fudgement'."

"Over 400 years of legal principles are being swept away and we are by far the
poorer for it."

fudgement: (n) A ruling, for example in a court of law, intended to fit the
facts to a desired outcome.

<ends>

The following is a PDF of a PA Press 'brief'.
http://www.metricmartyrs.co.uk/dynamicd ... rticle.pdf

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

If parking tickets are not fines then what are they?

Also if they're not fines then surely they become no more enforcible than a gas bill. The difference being that you enter into a contract with a gas supplier but no such contract exists with the parking authority.

The criminal courts should have no involvement in what is now quite clearly a civil matter regarding an unpaid debt that may or not even be valid.

Does anyone with more lawyers than me fancy investigating this line of thinking further?

I don't know more lawyers than you, but here's what I posted on the SafeSpeed mailing list in reply to Paul's PR:

_________________
Will

And my 'nodding' reply:

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Doesn't contract law in the UK require the two parties to be known to each other (and therefore mean that Microsoft licencing contracts are invalid)

If you assume that the Microsoft licencing contracts ARE valid, then at pay & display car parks, the T&Cs printed on the machine presumably make up the contract between the car park operator and yourself.

For double yellows, no such T&Cs exist, therefore no contract exists unless they start adding T&Cs to the little yellow signs that accompany double yellows.


So you can still get done for overstaying by 5 minutes at a pay&display but double yellows are now fair game!

Establishment decisions are a real pest. They show we’re barely moving out of the old school tie days. Perhaps there will be some fierce press mockery of the judge for declaring that parking fines are not fines?

_________________
I stole this .sig

I really don't think that muppet thought things through when he rode roughshod over the constitution. I suspect that he'll be close to No: 1 in the next edition of "World's worst decisions"!

Pay and Display might also be fair game if you play it right because it becomes a "battle of the forms" whereby two parties seek to impose contradictory terms. Most often the "last shot" prevails. So, if you stick a notice on the parking machine setting out your terms for your use of the parking space prior to inserting your money, the stated T&Cs on the parking ticket machine are void and your T&Cs should prevail. However, often it is decreed that no contract exists (in which case the Pay-and-Display park operator can go whistle!)

Edited to add:
I've just looked a little further into this. Now, IANAL but I reckon that the Traffic Management Act 2004 is the legislation that caused this fiasco. It's the legislation that AFAICT decriminalised parking offences, and replaced the scale 3 fines provided by the Road Traffic Regulations Act 1984 Sections 5 & 8 with equivalent civil penalties. Now it's a play on semantics here but the legislation provides for penalties, which I'd have thought synonymous with fines or forfeitures. Thus Mr Justice Collins's ruling does seem somewhat perverse. AIUI a penalty might have two meanings in this context:

• A punishment
• a payment required for not fulfilling a contract

In the first context, this must surely be synonymous with "fine" or "Forfeiture", but since Mr Justice Collins has ruled it is not this, it must mean a payment required for not fulfilling a contract...

... unless someone comes up with a third meaning for "civil penalty"

_________________
Will

Presumably I can just cross out the bits of the contract that I don't like before agreeing to it, or will that get me done for vandalism?

"The victory today will come from examination of Justice Collins judgment which will create a constitutional crisis" ... The Bill of Rights no longer applies


It's worse than that, I was there and the Judges wording shall we say.... was very loose. Basically, by declaring that parliament could do whatever it wants to do, where does that leave the Monarch????

Not only that, if a parking ticket is not a fine nor a forfeiture, then what the hell is it?? What I can't get my head around, is that the Judge then pronounces that even though NPAS is funded by the very parking tickets that they are adjudicating upon, they are still independant. At one point he declared, I do not need to hear further arguments, I say it's nonsense because I am Judge. (that's ok then)

I really want to have another read of the transcript because the wording and language he used is quite incredulous to say the least.

Also, before you all get disheartened, personally, I believe that this decision today was to our advantage. We are now in now doubt whatsoever, that the Judicary have aligned themselves with the establishment and that the people of this country are well and truly on their own.

Can we eliminate tort? (I don't know one way or the other.)

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Tort would still be heard within Court albeit civil. Also, Tort is used as a remedy for an individual to seek justice with the punishment beiong damages or punitive damages. I don't believe that on tort penalty is defined. I think we can dispense with Tort however to be honest, I think the Judge has left us without a definition at all.

Also, breach of Punitive order derived from Tort can result in imprisonment whereas with a penalty charge notice, you cannot be imprisoned.

I've posted this news to Pistonheads at:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topi ... 2&f=10&h=0
(registration required)

I have made the following comment:

The press does not seem to have noticed yet, but this ruling is of very fundamental importance to our constitutional rights. The judiciary have aligned themselves with the state when they are supposed to be, no, when they NEED to be independent. They have twisted the law to fit a pre-decided conclusion in the interests of the state.

As these rights disappear, one small step by one small step we are fundamentally damaging our fine legal system - and for what? In this case for bloody parking tickets.

The press and the public NEED to wake up to this NOW, because tomorrow you will find that the pigs hold sway.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Hear Hear!!!! Wait till you hear the transcripts. Judges are generally very careful with wording. Collins was not and in fact got himself mixed up somewhat when he tried to indicate that Northampton Bulk Centre was part of the appeal process. He later retracted that unfortunate statement.

I really do think, he's dropped Parliament right in it. His wording is open to interpretation, he didn't leave the bench to consider judgement and in fact made some very rash statements. I sincerely believe that the press will be crawling over this once they have digested the transcript.

What is also apparent from this "Judgement", is that ANY criminal offence can now be downgraded to a contravention 'without definition, meaning, clarity nor indeed protection' and what used to be a trial by jury, could be dealt with by a adjudication. Collins also said that a Judicial review, was part of the normal Appeals procedure in that adjudications were regulated by the same, an over simplification if ever there was one.

Collins actually stated (and I heard this quite clearly), that an adjudication was a trial!!!! I'm sure that would be news even to the Department of Constitutional Affairs.

Does anyone know how long it usually takes for a transcript to be made available? I'd be very interested in reading it.

Under English law a contractual penalty (a term that places a party in a substantially better position as a consequence of the other party's breach) is void (not "voidable" but "void").

A contract term that provides for a party in breach of contract to pay a stated sum to the other party (known as "liquidated damages") are permitted and enforceable, provided the amount payable is a genuine pre-estimate of the loss that the innocent party would suffer as a result of the breach.

The "penalty" on a pay and display parking ticket, it seems to me, would be bound to fail the liquidated damages test.

More later

How does that gel with 'penalty clauses' that make provision for late delivery?

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

They're actually liquidated damages - "penalty clause" is a misnomer.

I agree with Observer, liquid damages would not be applicable. There is no contract, there never has been. Such an idea that a penalty is contract related was probably because the idea was entertained by a stupid adjudicator who believed that the Bill of Rights was aligned with criminal law and not civil law as do stupid Judges; Bowles -V- Bank of England 1912 the judgement of which, was that the Bill of Rights may not be ignored by the Crown. This case was a civil case therefore the Bill of Rights is indeed applicable in civil cases and has indeed been ignored by the Crown. This is one of the civil cases and pieces of evidence that appears to have escaped Judge Collins as he only had 24 hours to satisfy himself with the bundle.

A penalty is punitive and due to this judgement therefore, a conflict between the Bill of Rights and a subordinate act still exists, a situation that cannot be within Constitutional law as the subordinate act is impliedly repealed.

A transcript of proceedings has been requested from the Court and will be made available at the earliest opportunity.