News

11 January 2023

The Members of Parliament from the Regional Policy, Public Works and Local Self-Governance Committee cast 14 votes in “in favour” to adopt at the first reading the legislative proposal of the Ombudsman to cancel the fines for paid wrong vignettes through an amendment to the Road Act tabled before the National Assembly in December of last year and supported by a group of MPs from GERB – UDF. 

Prof. Kovacheva proposes that a stop is to be put to imposing a compensatory fee of 70 levs or a fine of 300 levs if the fee is not paid on drivers who have made an error in writing out the their licence plate numbers when purchasing e-vignettes. 

The Ombudsman emphasised before the Members of Parliament that the issue affected drivers who found out accidently or quite late about the numerous compensatory fees of 70 levs imposed. Thus, in practice, they are penalised repeatedly for an error made involuntarily in writing out the licence plate number for a vehicle while they hardly suspect that they are offenders.

“I am glad that we have finally come to an opportunity for the first reading of this proposal based entirely on citizens’ complaints to me in my capacity of Ombudsman,” Prof. Kovacheva said and added that the number of such complaints had increased substantially over the past year and a half.

According to her, the error those driver have made is one of fact, due to inattention, but the fine imposed is significant – 300 levs – and it can be imposed every day; she also noted that there were cases where the fines amassed exceeded the value of a small vehicle many times.

In order to put a stop this injustice, Prof. Kovacheva suggests that notices about such compensatory fees for the Road Infrastructure Agency be served within three working days.

She insists that a correction be made if up to three digits of the licence plate number of a vehicle are put down incorrectly. That includes a correction if a character from the licence plate number of a vehicle has not been put down.

In her opinion, a correction is to be in force as of the time of the initial statement of one’s will.

She proposes a fair mechanism to reimburse any amounts paid unduly for compensatory fees for the correction of wrong vignettes within a shorter time – up to 5 working days; the amounts are to be reimbursed either to a bank account provided by the owner/user of a vehicle in the correction application or in cash if no bank account is given.

The Public Advocate also insists on automatic release from administrative criminal liability without any actions needed on the part of a person.

As regards the Prolesha case, the Ombudsman emphasised that the legislative proposal for 3 fines on the account of absence of vignettes within one year was inapplicable to the victims if there were no provisions for retroactive (backdated) application and once again pointed out the option of financial amnesty as a solution to the problem.