In December 2009 the Gwynville speed camera was happily snapping speeding motorists when a woman driving her son's car passed by. This set in motion a denial of justice that has now been corrected by Judge Paul Conlon, who has labelled the RTA's action " appalling " !
The offence carried a penalty of a $ 197 fine and loss of demerit points. There is no contest that the owner was not the driver of the car at the time of the fine. His mother freely admits that she was at the wheel - but this failed to sway the RTA from ruthlessly ordering the state debt recovery office from prosecuting to recover the money - from her son !
It all came down to the fine print ! Under the law, the owner of a vehicle detected of speeding has twenty-one days to nominate the actual driver. Failing to so nominate results in the owner being saddled with the fine - and the demerit points.
In this case, the car owner was in the process of multiple address changes between December 2009 and March 2010 - when notice of the fine finally caught up with him. He and his mother advised the RTA of the true nature of events - but to no avail. The RTA advised the debt recovery office to go for the money - and the hell with justice !
It seems to be just another case of a government short circuiting the normal process of law when it comes to filling their own coffers. Anyone else trying to recover a debt has a need to get a process server to serve a court attendance notice on the accused. This law was changed to allow the mere posting of a speed fine notice to the last known address to serve the same purpose.
Sadly, the only way to get justice seems to be to take the trouble - and expense - to go to court and fight an unjust imposition. Perhaps if judges started to award heavy legal costs against the debt recovery office the RTA would have a sudden change of mind - and view each case as other than just revenue raising !
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