Administrative law failures result in unlawful fine recovery
From time to time, a government agency discovers that their fine recovery process is unlawful. Sometimes, they find out that the unlawful process has been going on for decades.
A recent example of this happened in the Northern Territory in August 2024. The ‘Fines Recovery Unit’ apparently did not follow fine recovery processes in line with the legislation.
And it took a court case for the government to find out the issue.
The ABC News headine was: ‘Unpaid fines enforcement not compliant with legislation‘. Police Minister Brent Potter reported that the issue could go back at least 10 years. In a press conference he called it a ‘monumental stuff up‘. He also issued a media release. He stressed that the fines themselves were lawful, but the enforcement action was not.
It is reported on the Northern Territory government website that if you don’t pay a fine:
- you can receive more penalties and have to pay more money
- you can have your driver licence or vehicle registration suspended (note that the web link to this phrase does not appear to relate to it)
- you can have your property seized or sold
- the amount can be taken out of your salary or wages
- you can be be ordered to do community work
- you can have your vehicle immobilised by wheel clamps.
Unlawful licence suspension could get you sued
The consequences of such unlawful processes can be dire. People appear to have had their drivers’ licences unlawfully suspended, over many years, as a result of unpaid fines. But how did this happen?
The NT government and the media do not seem to have reported on what exactly was unlawful about the licence suspensions. Was it simply an unlawful process? Or was it unlawful to suspend the licence because there was no jurisdiction under the legislation to do so? One may speculate.
As a result of this ‘stuff up’ (the Police Minister’s words), some in the media speculate that the government could get sued. Maybe people could sue for economic loss, such as lost wages, suffered as a result of unlawful licence cancellation or suspension. Time will tell whether people sue the government, and if matters are settled out of court, we will not know the outcome.
Why do government agencies fail with fine recovery?
Why does this kind of thing happen? What can government agencies learn from these recurring mistakes?
There can be many reasons why a government agency fails to comply with legislative processes such as fine recovery processes. The reasons are not mutually exclusive.
One likely reason is a failure to read the legislation, which leads to a failure to understand the legal limits of licence suspension decision-making. Failure to know or understand the law is, of course, connected with a failure to apply it.
Yet another reason for unlawful fine recovery processes could be over-reliance on policy and procedure, to the detriment of the legislative authority itself. If someone in the government establishes a procedure as to how to go about suspending licences, administrators may comply with that procedure, even though it is not consistent with the Act.
How many people perpetuated the failure?
It is interesting to think about how many people might have perpetuated the unlawful licence-suspension processes without realising it. Does this mean that many of the public servants involved in fine recovery had no idea about the importance of legislation? Did people assume that all their processes were right? Day after day, week after week, year after year, person after person was apparently taking illegal enforcement action. This indicates issues of a systemic, cultural, or even ethical nature. No doubt, education about the lawful limits of administrative decision-making power would be useful. (Happy to help.)
As usual, ensure your fine recovery action under statute is lawful
Just like any other administrative decision or action, fine recovery under an Act must be lawful. Decision-makers need to learn (and their managers need to understand) the importance of legislation for their work. Without that legislative authority, they have no power to take fine recovery action at all.