An issue with the new way of serving out-of-court notices from the photo-marking system was raised yesterday in Parliament, after the actions of the Police to check drivers even at the roadblocks.
As AKEL Larnaca MP Andreas Pasiourtidis complained, fines began to be issued by cameras at barricades, ports and airports. He even stated that he received complaints that in one case police officers also withheld the identities of persons who would go to the occupied territories. Addressing the Minister of Justice, he asked for a relevant bill to be sent to the Parliament that would allow such a thing, "to help you serve extrajudicial documents legally".
Kostas Fytiris stated that the Police sent him the relevant information and it seems that their service is not prohibited, as is the case with the other out-of-court documents. He said that he will study the issue again so that there is equality between citizens. As he said, there are those who conscientiously pay their fine and those who realize that it is an out-of-court report from the cameras and do not receive it, so they do not pay. This is not fair, he said, stressing that there are currently 360.000 unserved out-of-court documents from the cameras.
According to information from "F", the Police started about 15 days ago to serve the out-of-court notices of the cameras at checkpoints, police stations or wherever a citizen is stopped - except at airports and ports - in an effort to reduce the huge volume of accumulated out-of-court documents. For this purpose, he also secured an opinion from the Legal Service. In order to identify a driver that an out-of-court or out-of-court notice is pending against him from the cameras, the Police, in cooperation with the company that manages the photo-tagging system, have prepared a list of the details of all those reported by cameras, the well-known photo radar list.
In fact, in a recent announcement by the Police, after reactions from citizens, he stated that the service of extrajudicial documents can be done by a member of the Police at any point, which is located in the areas controlled by the Republic. It is emphasized that criminal prosecution against a person to whom an out-of-court fine has been served, which has not been paid, may be brought with the lapse of 105 days, from the date of service and not the issuance of the fine, instead of 45, which was previously in force. The imposition of a 50% charge for an unpaid out-of-court fine is activated 90 days after its issuance, instead of 30 that was previously in force.
However, there is a view on the part of Members that the legislation on the labelling system does not specify as a procedure service at checkpoints or police stations or anywhere else, but only by receipt of a letter by post, or by service of the out-of-court notice by an enforcer.
