Parking system 'is not legal ...' (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Parking system 'is not legal ...'

Leslie Hatcher who says Swindon council should pay back parking fines Picture Ref: 100577A BUSINESSMAN is set to go head to head against the council claiming that the town's whole parking system is illegal.

Leslie Hatcher alleges that an ancient bill of rights states that no local authority can fine the public without going through a proper court of law.

According to him, this means that the council has been acting illegally by collecting parking fines from the general public since it took over from the police in 2003.

The 62-year-old businessman, who runs the Leslie Hatcher Bridal and Men's Formal Wear shop on Temple Street, is now challenging the council, and in particular council leader Mike Bawden, to withdraw from handing out any more parking fines.

And he also wants an audit to take place so that the council can pay back every person that it has 'illegally' collected fines from already.

He said: "I am calling on Mike Bawden, the leader of Swindon Council, to accept that he is running an illegal parking regime in the town and to stop issuing parking tickets to anyone with immediate affect.

"I am also calling on the council to carry out an audit from November, 2003, when the system was brought in and to refund all of the money it has illegally collected forthwith."

Mr Hatcher is even prepared to go out and get a parking ticket himself so that he can fight it all the way to the High Court.

The Bill of Rights from 1689 states that no authority can fine or demand the forfeiture of property unless through a court of law.

At the moment, if people appeal against a parking fine it goes before the National Parking Adjudicator Service (NPAS), which has adjudicators who are not sworn in as magistrates and the tribunals are not held in a court of law.

The decriminalisation of parking and taking the responsibility away from the police and giving it to the local authority came about through the 1991 Road Traffic Act.

Campaigners claim that the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Rights which preceded it, were not overruled by the 1991 Act and that this Act is nothing more than a failed attempt at the enactment of a law, without lawful authority of any kind.

Mr Hatcher, the former President of South Swindon Conservatives, has launched his challenge to the council after a man called Robin De Crittenden appealed against a ticket he received in the West Midlands saying it contravened the 1689 Bill of Rights. A judicial review brought by Mr De Crittenden is to be held in the High Court on January 17 on the actions of NPAS and whether it is acting legally or not.

The council has responded by saying that a national parking adjudicator has already ruled that there is no conflict between the two acts, but Mr Hatcher states that this is far from settled as it still has to go to the judicial review and he rejects all of the local authority's arguments.

"Swindon Council is acting illegally and what's more there is no way, with all the controversy surrounding Robin's campaign, that it could not know it is acting illegally," added Mr Hatcher.

"And it is mind-numbing to think that the council is even using bailiffs and suchlike to collect these illegal fines.

"The councils just can't afford to stop collecting the fines as it has become a nice revenue earner for them.

"I realise budgets need to be balanced and services paid for but this should not be by illegally fining the general public.

"This is about politicians acting within the law and not abusing their power.

"They have to stop doing this.

"If a council does not stick to the law it is maladministration."

According to Mr Hatcher there are 141 councils in the UK which are collecting their own parking fines and they all need to stop now.

Coun Bawden did not wish to comment.

What a solicitor says

Newsquest solicitor Simon Westrop said: "There is a constant debate among constitutional lawyers as to whether one Parliament can bind the actions of a future Parliament.

"Whether or not Mr Hatcher is right in the case of the Bill of Rights, I do not know.

"But he stands for a fine historical tradition of English resistance against what some might see as oppressive government.

"It was precisely this kind of argument about unfair taxes and levies of course that started among lawyers under James I and which led, ultimately, to the English Civil War."

What the council says

A Swindon Council spokesman said the authority was not acting illegally, and Mr Hatcher's point was not new.

A similar challenge was made to a council in Merseyside earlier this year, and was ruled on by the parking adjudicator in August.

In his ruling, he clearly stated that there is no conflict between decriminalised parking and the 1689 Bill of Rights Act.

The intention of the 1689 Act was to ensure that a person had a right of challenge to any financial penalty imposed on him or her.

When Swindon Council issues a parking ticket, the Road Traffic Act of 1991 imposes a duty on it to consider and respond to any challenge to the decision to issue the ticket. The Council must also give a right of appeal to an independent tribunal if it rejects that person's grounds for the challenge.

The High Court has also previously considered the 1991 Road Traffic Act, which brought in decriminalised parking, and it raised no issue in relation to the 1689 Act.

What the law says

The Road Traffic Act 1991 brought about a number of key changes to the country's parking system.

Parking "offences" enforced by councils were "decriminalised" and brought within the civil enforcement system.

At the same time a number of additional enforcement responsibilities, such as restricted (yellow line) parking, were removed from the police and also given to councils.

The provisions of the Road Traffic Act 1991 were first implemented by the 33 London Boroughs during 1993-4.

Since the late 1990s an increasing number of councils outside London have also taken up decriminalised enforcement powers including Swindon in 2003.

It is these councils in England and Wales, (not including London), for whom the National Parking Adjudication Service provides the independent appeals service required by the Road Traffic Act 1991.

This is a statutory act and Mr Hatcher claims that it cannot overule a constitutional act such as the 1689 Bill of Rights without provision within the act that it is going to be doing exactly that and Mr Hatcher claims that the 1991 Act did not do that.

Constitutional acts are the underpinning laws that sets out the rights of the country, while a statutory act is individual legislation set by a parliament.

The Bill of Rights Act, 1689 passed through Parliament after the coronation of William of Orange and Queen Mary and on December 16, 1689, the King and Queen gave it Royal Assent passing it in to English law.

Never again would English monarchs claim their power came from God as The Bill of Rights Act, 1689, represented the end of the concept of divine right of kings, which was one of the issues over which the English Civil War had been fought. It also made kings and queens subject to laws passed by Parliament, this has been called the "Glorious Revolution".

Jamie Hill Chief reporter