News

 2 December 2022

Ombudsman Diana Kovacheva has tabled before the National Assembly amendments to the Road Act (RA) and the Road Traffic Act (RTA) which will put an end to the compensatory fee of 70 levs and the fine of 300 levs if the fee is not paid for drivers who have made an error of up to three characters in writing down the registration number or have missed the number when purchasing e-vignettes.  

The problem is that drivers learn by chance and often very late that they have been charged with compensatory fees of 70 levs. Thus, in practice, many times they are penalised for an unintentional error in writing down the registration number of the vehicle without even suspecting that they are offenders.

This is why the Ombudsman proposes that notices about such compensatory fees to the Road Infrastructure Agency be sent within three working days.

In February 2022, the Ombudsman disclosed a flagrant case in which 50 infringements had been registered for one driver over 3 months. The driver had only found out from a BGToll team while on the road; moreover the driver had been liable to pay the amount of 3,500 levs.

According to Prof. Kovacheva, such penalties do not correspond to the infringement and they can sometimes even exceed the price of a car. Furthermore, if drivers refuse to pay the compensatory fees releasing them from administrative criminal liability, the fee set out for traveling along the paid road network without a vignette is 300 levs per car.

“I find the absence of express notices about compensatory fees due to be inadmissible. They need to be an inherent element of the procedure given that the legislator has laid down a penalty which releases drivers from administrative criminal liability. In this way, the owner of a vehicle who has unwittingly provided wrong information will be able to take timely action and to remedy the error,” Diana Kovacheva states in the motivation accompanying her proposal.

She adds that, pursuant to the effective regulatory framework, as condition for a correction to be made in wrong information provided by the owner or driver of a vehicle, the latter need to submit an application for a change which will establish unequivocally that there is no other vehicle registered under a registration number which is identical to the one provided initially in the vignette, in the same State of registration or category. She goes on to note that the change in the information of an e-vignette is effective from the time of correction and that it is valid until the validity of the one issued initially.

This is why Diana Kovacheva proposes that a correction be made if up to three characters in the registration number of a vehicle are wrong. She points out that one of the most frequent mistakes when vignettes are purchased is for people to put down the letter O instead of the digit 0.

She also insists on a correction if a character from the registration number of a vehicle has not been put down, as such cases of unintentional acts have also been referred to her.

“Furthermore, the effective provision of Article 10а (3b) (2) of the RA sets out that, “A change in the information of the electronic vignette shall be effective as of the time the correction is made and shall be valid until the expiry of the validity of the one issued initially” which does not resolve the citizens’ problems with the compensatory fees they have been charged with. When e-vignettes are corrected, these grounds are used to refuse cancelation, respectively reimbursement of any compensatory fees paid. In practice, the receipt of funds in this manner results in undue enrichment,” the Public Advocate goes on to note.

She emphasises that a mandatory element of the subjective aspect of an administrative violation is guilt and, when such is missing, there is no breach in place and, therefore, no administrative criminal liability may be engaged.

She notes that it is obvious that there is no guilt in the case of an error of fact in writing down the number; hence, no administrative penalty may be imposed. She points out that the correction of a wrong vignette is only a correction of an error of fact and the correction should be effective as of the time of the initial statement.

“There needs to be a fast and fair mechanism to reimburse unduly paid amounts for compensatory fees when wrong vignettes are corrected. I propose a short period for this – up to 5 working days; amounts can be reimbursed to a bank account provided in the correction application by the owner/driver of a vehicle or, if one is provided, at a cash desk,” the Ombudsman notes.

She emphasises that the amendment to the RTA concerns administrative criminal liability where one should not be borne when wrong information in an e-vignette is corrected pursuant to the proposed text of Article 10a (3b) (2) of the RA.

“The release from administrative criminal liability should be automatic, without the person having to take any action,” Prof. Kovacheva states.