The Association of Associated European Motorists (AEA) considers it a “very important judicial precedent” and a “blow” for the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT). This body shall return the points and the validity of a trucker’s driving license because, before, the Ministry of Finance had already annulled the economic part of the sanction. The fine had not been notified correctly.
In his sentence, the judge considered a problem of legal certainty “that for two organs of the State some facts existed and at the same time did not exist”. In this case, the provincial headquarters of Traffic and the regional economic administrative court that depends on the Treasury, and that had already withdrawn the sanction.
Since the DGT launched the permit by points, in 2006, the agency “has been systematically denied” in the words of AEA, to return the points deducted for poorly processed fines and later annulled by the Treasury.
For the president of AEA, Mario Arnaldo, “the loss of points is linked to the fine like the shadow to the body It cannot be that the Treasury annuls the economic part of the sanction because the fine has not been notified correctly and, nevertheless, Traffic keep detracting points”.
Misreported fines
“We calculate that one in three fines is misreported. Because they are sent to the wrong addresses, because perhaps the postman doesn’t leave the notice… There are many notification problems”, says Arnaldo.
This case, which has now been resolved in favor of the affected trucker, thus began in 2018, with a claim before the Treasury (and later before the Regional Economic-Administrative Court of Castilla y León) for two sanctions of the DGT of which the affected motorist had no prior knowledge.
Both fines were annulled, since your notice was sent to a mismatched address with the one indicated by the driver, and the publication in the Official State Gazette was considered insufficient. However, Traffic maintained the deduction of points and initiated a procedure for the expiration of the driving license. When he ran out of a license, the trucker was fired.
“There was no other option than to take Traffic to court,” summarizes AEA. Traffic sources point out that the DGT “complies with the sentence”, but emphasizes that it is only “a sentence”.
Repercussion in the criminal field
Although it is an isolated case, in the opinion of the president of AEA, Mario Arnaldo, “it represents a very important legal precedent because dismantle the perverse argument that the DGT has been using for more than a decade to avoid returning the points for poorly processed fines”.
As AEA explains, Traffic does not recognize the Treasury reviewing powers of its sanctioning power. Even if the economic part of the sanction is annulled, the deduction of points is recorded.
The judicial decision opposes this idea: “If the administrative body [Hacienda] understood that the notification of the sanctioning resolution was irregular, […] reasons of legal certainty […] lead to this being considered equally in relation to the deduction of points”.
Arnaldo highlights the importance of the sentence in the criminal field. Failure to return points for misreported fines may lead motorists to use “an unreal balance of points” and, with this, to lose the validity of their permit and “incur in a crime against road safety without knowing it.”