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Home Office dodges a lega bullet over Roth precedeni
Page 6
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Si by Sally Nash
The Home Office has made an out-of-court settlement with a group of international hauliers fighting the government's 12,000-a-head stowaway fines—but refuses to say whether other UK operators will be treated the same.
The story so far...
22 October 2001: High Court hearing over legality of fines.
Judgment day. High Court rules that the civil penalty system is illegal. Justice Sullivan describes it as "tough but not fair". Government to appeal, 22 February 2002: Court of Appeal hearing, Both the industry and the government insist they have won. But government has broken EU human rights laws. concludes Court of Appeal judgment.
April 2002: Horne Office announces plans to double the maximum stowaway fine to £4,000 without consultation. The move is designed to get round the Roth (Court of Appeal) ruling which criticised the fixed fining system.
Oct c: Nationality, !Migration and Asylum Bill is debated in the House of Lord& As a result of the settlement, the 36 hauliers represented by German lawyer Gunter Zimmer— including 10 UK companies—will have their fines dropped, storage and securities costs refunded and their vehicles returned if they had been impounded. However, the Home Office rejected claims for damages, including loss of earnings.
The out-of-court settlement is the latest twist in a long-running legal battle which became known as the "Roth" case—after a German haulier whose vehicle was impounded and who was fined £&000.
The Road Haulage and Freight Transport Associations have now called on the government to treat every haulier affected as if they had been a party to the Roth case.
In a letter to Home Office minister Beverley Hughes, RHA head of international affairs, Mike Freeman, says: "I presume the government will shortly be issuing a statement confirming that all other operators who received fixed penalties prior to the High Court action (at the end of last year/ and indeed those who have penalties outstanding in the same period will receive the same consideration as the 'Roth' litigants," FTA chief executive Richard Turner echoes his cry in a separate lotto Hughes: "This is the only way to en equality, remove the huge backlog of testable cases, avoid the probabilit further legal challenges to obtain pi with Roth and pave the way for nu ahead with a revised system compa with human rights legislation."
But the Home Office stresses thal settlement only applies to those part the Roth case and that it is still consi ing ''how to deal" with the roma hauliers. It is unable to give any sot timescale for a decision, When the High Court suspended penalties in December 2001 there had around 114m of penalties issued, of w only around 12m had been paid. I unclear how many civil penalty nor have been handed out between Decor: 2001 and now.
• The Nationality, Immigration and As BM, which proposes fines of up to 1.4,00( stowaway, is currently being debated ir Lords. Last week Earl Attlee's amendi suggesting that agreed checks, such ai emissions tests, should be a statu defence was rejected by the government