Filenews 11 June 2022 - by Michalis Hadjivasilis
Since 2019, the traffic police management and those involved in the processes for the advent of the cameras, warned of the weaknesses and problems that would arise and "choke" the system, so that the next phase would not proceed.
In fact, there are also letters listing the problems that would arise – as eventually happened – due to the many complaints and the inadequacy of the system for serving extrajudicial documents. In fact, in a letter, the provision was made for one million complaints a year, in full operation of the system (all 120 fixed and mobile cameras). At the same time, the problems of identifying offenders were highlighted, which is the case today, with the result that the same person is registered under different names in the different databases, resulting in identification problems.
More than five months after the formal operation of the system in the pilot phase, more than 80,000 drivers have been reported, the system is virtually at a standstill since the extrajudicial documents are served more than four months after the violation and it is still unknown what will happen to those who deliberately or not do not go to pick up their out-of-court documents. Also, while the receipt of the first phase of the system should have begun, i.e. another 20 fixed cameras and another 16 mobile cameras a three-month delay in its receipt was requested.
And yet, since 2019, the Traffic Police warned of the problems that would come if timely measures were not taken and asked for an urgent meeting to be convened so that everyone would be ready for the system to work.
In a letter in December 2019, the content of which came to the attention of "F", reference was made to concerns about the successful implementation of the photo-labelling system. After stressing that the policy for the operation of the photo-labelling system was decided years ago at ministerial level, in order to involve the private sector as much as possible and vice versa, to disengage the Police as much as possible. According to the instructions to the contractor, the identification of the offender will be done in principle from the data registered in the Road Transport Department (T.O.M.) as well as other records that the Police, or other state Agency may have available. Based on the instructions to a contractor, according to the letter, the private operator of the contractor company, after recording the violation, will look for the details and address of residence of the offending driver. Then, with the available data (from a T.O.M. file) he will send to the offender, by registered mail, the relevant form G.L.276 (extrajudicial / notice).
In the letter, the following negative elements are noted in the form of order:
a) According to practice, about 30% of offenders are not identified for service. This is due to the failure of the last owner of the vehicle to inform the T.O.M. about the change of ownership or change of its address. It is estimated that the result of this will be that the private company will send the entire volume of undelivered mail to the Police, in order to carry out the necessary examinations for the detection and delivery of mail to the offenders, as was the case in the recent past with other systems for which there was a contractor.
It is also added that the Public Prosecutor's Office, statistically over the last three years, has served about 15% of undelivered mail. The remaining cases will be pending until the identification of the owner/ offender for service. If the existing procedure is followed for the detection of undelivered mail of photo-tagging using the ALERT-LIST system, according to the administration of the Aliens and Immigration Service, the area of arrivals and departures of all passport control centres will be blocked with all the negative consequences.
b) Due to the large number of photo-labelling devices that will be installed, it is expected that the complaints will be many tens of thousands every month. It is also estimated that this will gradually lead to the accumulation of a large number of registered mail, in the post offices as not received. The unsolicited will be returned to the Police for identification and delivery. A large number of offenders will avoid receipt for the purpose of non-payment and the deletion of the violation due to the recently passed statute of limitations for offences.
100,000 complaints for each month
The same letter expresses the estimate that in the full operation of the system, extrajudicials will skyrocket to one million a year. As mentioned, since the installation of photo-tagging on Griva Digenis Avenue with two cameras, from June 2014 to June 2019, about 88,000 violations were recorded (after the speed limit change). As a logical consequence, especially in the first years of the system's operation, a huge number of more than 100,000 complaints are expected to be recorded nationwide per month and more than 1,000,000 per year.
Therefore, it is noted, a huge volume of registered letters will be sent to the post office for service. When it is learned, it is pointed out, that the vast majority of registered letters concern extrajudicial complaints, it is estimated that a very large number of the offenders will not come to receive them.
Incentives to avoid paying for families
The following negative elements are also noted in the same letter:
>> Increases in financial penalties are a disincentive to payment.
>> Statistically every family will have to pay a large amount of money for the extrajudicial complaints, which will be in large numbers, so there is an incentive to avoid payment.
>> In conclusion, it is expected that a fairly large number of offenders who have been served will not pay them, either intentionally or due to the inability to find the amount, or even with a view to the limitation period after the expiry of the time limit.
>> The Court will not be able to deal with the multiple cases that will reach the Courts from the extrajudicial complaints that will not be paid.
>> From the unhindered extrajudicial complaints of photo-labelling, a very large amount of work will accumulate in Police Stations in the District Branches of public prosecutor's offices, in the Photo-labelling branch, the post offices and possibly in other services.
In order to avoid a volume of accumulated extrajudicial documents, a suggestion is made to update the data declared by the owners of private vehicles to the T.O.M. That is why it is suggested that all those who keep a file of citizens should update them so that the correct data of the offenders can be obtained. Finally, instead, today each database has its own names, some with Latin characters, others in Greek, others with English, so many names do not fit and the extrajudicial fines cannot be issued.
