UNCOLLECTED FINE WARRANTS - €256million OWED TO THE STATE

 Filenews 26 January 2024 - by Fanis Makrides

Vertigo is caused by the amount related to uncollected fine warrants in the Republic of Cyprus.

According to official data from the Ministry of Justice, the total amount amounts to €300 million, while €256 million. They relate to debts to the state. These uncollected fines have accumulated over a period of 43 years (since 1980). Over time, of course, there has been a rapid increase in the number of fines pending for various reasons, causing legitimate concern.

This inflated problem for the Cypriot State is highlighted through an official question submitted by MP Nikos Georgiou to Anna Prokopiou Koukkides and which was answered shortly before the latter handed over the portfolio of the Ministry of Justice. It was held on the occasion of a discussion in the parliamentary committee on Legal Affairs last October (18/10/2023), during which some data were given roughly.

Civil debts, debts, fines

As can be seen from the answers to the eight points raised by the MP, the number of uncollected fines from 1980 until today is 293,150, which corresponds to €300,211,453. Most of this huge amount concerns debts to the state.

Specifically, the €256,536,949 relates to civil debts, debts to municipal authorities, the Cyprus Tourism Organisation, Social Insurance, the Water Development Department, Income Tax, as well as fines for various criminal offences, military court convictions and traffic offences. 

Most uncollected warrants are related to traffic offences (105.737 fines – €28.272.709), obligations towards municipal authorities (51.327 – €18.037.412) and various criminal offences (48.793 – €35.511.759).

The remaining €43,674,504 are uncollected fine warrants imposed in the context of private criminal proceedings and maintenance orders.

€191 million to natural persons

Of the total amount of €300,211,453, €191,536,738 (261,397) are fines imposed on natural persons, while €108,674,715 are the debts of legal entities, i.e. companies and other business entities.

From 55 to 22,053                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 The tables cited by the Ministry of Justice in its response are sufficiently informative about the rapid growth of the problem. Since 1995 there has been a continuous increase in the number of uncollected fines. It is indicative that in that year the Police had registered 55 uncollected fine warrants, while in 2023 (until November) the corresponding number was 22,053.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         They died and went bankrupt...                                                                                                                                                                                                     The figures given on this issue do not seem to give rise to optimism as to the collection of these fines. Specifically, the outstanding orders that are under suspension/settlement of payment by instalments are 22,919 and correspond to €21,009,070. In relation to the total uncollected, that is, the number of those who have settled is small. As noted in the Ministry's reply to the DISY MP, "citizens who have debts are given the opportunity to settle the payment of their outstanding warrants, upon their request to the Attorney General of the Republic, thus exercising their right to suspend and settle the payment of the amount due, in monthly instalments.                                                                                                                                                                                                                       It is also noted that natural persons who were required to pay the fine warrants have died. These are 252 fines corresponding to €277,852. In addition, 76 fine warrants (€166,310) concern companies that have declared bankruptcy.                                                                                                                                                                                                     Separate register                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       In his question to the Ministry, the Member raises the issue of keeping a separate register of fines that are 'not recoverable by the Republic'. The answer given is that "this question concerns the Court, since when a warrant is returned by the Police, the Court, as the owner of the warrant, is competent to decide whether to close it or charge it, again, to the Police, knowing that the warrant cannot be executed."

The Audit Office for pending out-of-court cases

The issue of extrajudicial fines was once again addressed by the Audit Office in its recent audit of the police force. In a special report for the Police Force dated 30/11/2023, she noted on the controversial issue: "We requested a list of extrajudicial fines that have not been collected within the deadline and which were forwarded for judicial action, but then the case was withdrawn without any amount being collected. The Police provided us with partial information, however, in violation of the Constitution, about the persons who were exempted from the obligation to pay the extrajudicial fee, refused to give us nominal information and data on the value of extrajudicial documents per classification category, for the offense related to each extrajudicial case. As a result, we were unable to carry out our audit in this area."

With regard to this chapter, the Audit Office, in its report, found, inter alia, the following:

• Many out-of-court calls are issued incorrectly, due to technical problems in the equipment used, resulting in a need for their subsequent cancellation.
• A large number of out-of-court cases remain unpaid for a very long time, without proceeding with the prescribed procedures for bringing debtors to court. Many of them concern extrajudicial notices issued by the new photo-labelling system.
• 35% of extrajudicial notices issued by the photo-tagging system have not yet been received by offenders. Of the above percentage, more than half have been issued in the first half of 2022.
• Following the administrative audits of our Office in 2017 and 2021, there is a relative stabilization in the number of unexecuted warrants and a slight decrease in their value, however, both their number and their value remain at high levels.