Tracing traffic fine dodgers Russian bailiffs are now going to be on duty at road police stations to drivers pay off their debts.
Photo: Sergey Mikheev
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Bailiffs Clamp Down on Traffic Fine Dodgers on the Roads
The Federal Bailiff Service has launched a large-scale operation to clamp down on traffic fine dodgers. Bailiffs are now on duty at road police stations, making the drivers pay off debts threatening with seizing their cars. Lawyers note that the bailiffs’ actions to collect outstanding fines may be illegal.
The Federal Bailiff Service has launched a campaign to crack down on traffic fine dodgers. The operation is covering Ryazan, Altay, Yaroslavl, Leningrad and Moscow Regions.
Bailiffs are now on duty at road police stations. Cars are stopped for road police to check the driver’s license. Drivers are asked to go to the station. Afterwards, the driver is checked against the fine payment database. A police officer writes out a fine – if there are outstanding debts – and hands it over to a bailiff who offers the drive to pay the fine at the station, Alexander Gara from the Federal Bailiff Service told Kommersant on Thursday. “If the driver declines to pay the fine, bailiffs have a right to seize their property if its value matches the sum of the fine – a radio player or a spare wheel, for example.”
On Thursday, bailiffs seized a car outside St. Petersburg for fine dodging. Bailiffs offered a driver who had 18 unpaid traffic fines to clear his 19,000 rubles debt but the drive declined to.
Legal experts doubt that bailiffs’ actions on Russian roads can always be lawful. “The only thing that bailiffs are entitled to do is temporarily withdrawing the driver’s license,” Viktor Travin, head of the Moscow Motorists Legal Assistance Board, says. “Besides, there can be no information on the fine payment – the receipt can be on the way to the police. A driver has presumption of innocence after all,” the lawyer insists.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 22, 2006
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