Another fine mess
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All reasonable checks made; all documents in order; no question of prior knowledge—and a £22,000 fine for bringing illegal immigrants into the country. Italian haulier Balbo's experience at the hands of the Immigration Service will be all too familiar to hundreds of other hauliers who have already been forced to pay f2,000 a head for carrying stowaways, despite doing everything that could be expected to follow the law.
It's no surprise that since these fines were introduced last year they have caused widespread outrage, branding innocent and guilty alike and leaving little scope for successful appeals. So, a few million pounds and io months later, we'll all be watching closely to see what progress is made from this week in the first major challenge to the Immigration Service's appeals procedure.
We wish Ian Ramsay of law firm Holmes Hardingham every success. Where else in British law is a single organisation allowed to act as arresting officer, judge, jury and appeal court on the same action? And where else can the accused be deemed automatically guilty until proven otherwise—with such a small chance of establishing their innocence?
The time is certainly ripe for review, as the recent report from the Commons Home Affairs Committee suggests by calling for the independence of the appeal system to be looked into. And apart from the fine paid by Balbo, there are millions more pounds at stake in the form of penalties against other hauliers.
Let's hope that the decision, when it eventually comes, is the right one and these obviously unfair penalties finally have their potency curtailed to give innocent hauliers a fair break.