A parliamentary committee says all lockdown fines should be reviewed. They argue the system for issuing fixed penalty notices for breaches is “muddled, discriminatory and unfair”.
Fines for breaking the rules regarding Covid restrictions range between £200 and £10,000.
Since the start of the pandemic, over 85,000 fixed penalty notices issued in England, and 8,000 in Wales.
MPs on the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) now call for a review of them all. There is significant concern over the validity of fines, size of penalties, inadequacy of the appeal process and criminalisation of people who cannot afford to pay.
They are not saying there shouldn’t be consequences for those who most flagrantly breached the rules. But they think the whole process disproportionately hits the less well-off and criminalises the poor.
A lack of legal clarity
The committee recognise that facing the pandemic needed swift action. The government had to ensure rules were clear, enforcement was fair and any mistakes could be rectified. However, MP Harriet Harman says this wasn’t the case regarding Covid fixed penalty notices.
A lack of legal clarity leads to the possibility of a large number of wrongly issued fines. The police had a difficult job enforcing the rules during the pandemic. The fact that since March 2020 coronavirus rules have changed at least 65 times didn’t help.
Evidence shows an unfair system where the people most at risk are the young, certain ethnic minorities, men and the socially deprived.
People issued with fixed penalty notices by the police can either pay a fine or face a criminal prosecution. So anyone who can’t afford to pay faces a criminal record, resulting in consequences for their future.
Looking at unpaid penalties which progressed through the system towards a prosecution, it is clear a significant number are incorrect. A review of prosecutions under coronavirus regulations found in February that 27% of charges were wrong.
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