The Constitutional Court clarified the norms of the Code of Administrative Offenses in favor of punished individuals and organizations

Prompt payment of a fine with a fifty percent discount within 20 days after the decision is made does not limit the right of citizens to appeal the very fact of the violation and does not mean that the car owner admitted his guilt. Moreover, the fine can be appealed even after a year if there are grounds for it, the Constitutional Court points out in its ruling. The Constitutional Court searched for, but did not find, contradictions in the norms of the current Code of Administrative Offenses, and a number of them were additionally explained to the courts.

The decision of the Constitutional Court published yesterday concerns the case of the Avtoprofi company, which received a fine of 100 thousand rubles in 2021. according to part 1 of Art. 12.21.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses for an overloaded truck (the violation was recorded by an automatic point of weight and size control). The representatives of the carrier paid for the decision within 20 days with a 50% discount, but then, already in 2022, they went to court. First, the company’s lawyers restored the appeal period (it is ten days, but by that time it had already expired), and then they succeeded in canceling the decision.

The decision of the court of first instance was based on the fact that in June 2022 the State Duma canceled the composition of the violation (a fine for a small overload up to 10% of the permitted mass), which formed the basis of the fine, and the law mitigating liability has retroactive effect. The traffic police did not agree with the decision and appealed it to the Kostroma Regional Court, citing the fact that the law is retroactive in respect of only unfulfilled decisions, that is, unpaid fines. The regional court requested the position of the Constitutional Court with a request to clarify the situation. The request referred to contradictory judicial practice: the norms of the code are not clearly formulated, which contradicts the principle of legal certainty enshrined in the Basic Law.

The Constitutional Court, having examined the materials of the case, found no contradictions with the Constitution. The prompt payment of the fine before it comes into force does not cancel the presumption of innocence, does not mean that the citizen has admitted his guilt, and does not deprive him of the right to appeal against the decision, the court stated in the decision. It is emphasized that a complaint about a fine must be considered by the court in any case (if the appeal period is restored) – regardless of the time that has elapsed since the date of the decision (in the case of the Avtoprofi case, a year has already passed). Moreover, the Constitutional Court noted that if the appeal period is restored even after a long time, the decision itself is again given the status of “not having entered into force”. “The possibility of voluntary payment of a fine in the amount of half the amount no later than 20 days does not deviate from the constitutional principles of justice and legal equality, does not call into question the inevitability of responsibility, does not entail additional monetary burdens on persons involved in it, does not deprive them of guarantees of state protection of their rights and freedoms,” the Constitutional Court’s resolution says.

The issue considered by the Constitutional Court is “rather complicated from a legal point of view,” says Vladislav Vatamaniuk, managing partner of the Vatamanyuk & Partners law group. He believes that the court interpreted the contested norms of the Code of Administrative Offenses “broadly”, because, if one is guided by the literal interpretation of the articles of the code, the execution of the punishment still prevents the application of the law, which has retroactive effect. Although the Constitutional Court did not recognize the contested norms as contrary to the Constitution and did not give instructions to the legislator, Vladislav Vatamaniuk suggested that it would be advisable to introduce a clarifying amendment to the Code of Administrative Offenses: a law that mitigates or cancels administrative responsibility should have retroactive effect and apply to fines that have not entered into legal force ( and not on the unfulfilled, as now). “This would make it possible to exclude such situations in law enforcement practice,” the expert believes.

Ivan Buranov