Blitz on unpaid fines

Press, 28 August 1986, Page 31

Blitz on unpaid fines

PA Wellington The Government has warned people with unpaid court fines to pay up, or they will learn they cannot ignore the law. The Minister of Justice, Mr Palmer, said a joint Justice Department and police team had been set up to consider the unpaid fines problem, and senior court officials had also met last week. "I am not going to discuss publicly what action is planned," Mr Palmer said. “However, I am confident that unless they (offenders) act to remedy the situation, persons who have been accumulating fines will find out before long that they cannot ig-

nore or treat with contempt penalties imposed by the courts of law.” When asked if this comment could be interpreted as a warning to people with unpaid fines, a spokeswoman for Mr Palmer said that it could. The Justice Department’s last annual report said the amount of fines outstanding at any one time rose from $l2 million to $l7 million between the beginning and end of 1985, a trend officials have called disturbing. Recently, the department’s Assistant Secretary for Courts, Mr Garth Soper, told a Parliamentary select committee: “We believe we have a bigger

term payment system than the Farmers Trading Company.” Mr Palmer said it was important to “get the facts straight” and keep issues in perspective. Most of the outstanding fines were for minor traffic offences, and the amount of time the police and Justice Department had to enforce them had to be balanced against other important work. He said there came a point when less responsible people believed they could get away without paying fines and tried to take advantage of the system. “At that point we must act,” Mr Palmer said.