NCJ Number
177671
Date Published
1995
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This analysis of the use of on-the-spot fines instead of court processing for certain law violations in Australia concludes that an infringements law should be enacted and should contain certain specific provisions.
Abstract
These fines began in South Australia as an approach confined to parking and traffic offenses, but it has now expanded to many other areas of social regulation. These fines are administrative rather than judicial in nature and are used to prevent minor offenses from reaching the courts. Eighty-eight percent of offenses and infringements in Victoria, Australia, are handled by this method. The infringement notice system has affected both the substantive and procedural law and has blurred the relationship between the two. However, the system raises issues of fairness, particularly in relation to offenses in which liability requires a distinction between different mental states or in which the behavior in question has to be tested against some standard of reasonableness. An infringement law is needed to define the offenses designated as infringements and the procedural arrangements for issuing and enforcing these fines. The penalties should be both proportionate to the wrongdoing and in the lower echelons of the hierarchy of penalties. The recommended law should also follow several other specific guidelines. 6 references