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Date Published: 04/05/2021
ARCHIVED - Nearly 1 million Covid sanctions could be cancelled say legal experts
Spanish legal experts have warned that nearly 1 million fines handed out for breaking Covid restrictions in the first few months of the pandemic could be left unpaid following lack of clarity over whether they were valid.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, 1,142,127 fines for breaking lockdown restrictions were handed out between March 14 and June 21 last year, however only 228,994- around 20 per cent- of those have been processed by the government so far.
Experts are now questioning what will happen to the remaining 80 per cent of sanctions, with one
lawyer claiming fines issued during the first state of alarm may not be valid.
The president of Administrative Law at the Madrid Bar Association, Alberto Dorrego, said some sanctions issued during that time may not have to be paid as they were for offences that did not fall under the categories set out by the government of either disobedience against authority or breach of health law.
In some areas additional staff have been drafted in to help speed-up the process of issuing fines, but is has already been stated by several influential voices that enforcing all of the fines may be impossible.
The more than 1 million fines handed out during the first state of alarm ranged from between €600 and €30,000.
The majority of the fines were issued for non-compliance with lockdowns and mobility restrictions or in application of the controversial 2015 Citizen Security Law, or ‘Gagging Law’ as it is commonly known.
Although the current government had promised to repeal the law, they have yet to do so.
Figures showed that Andalucia was the region that has processed the most fines, at nearly 60,000, followed by the Canary Islands at 34,828, and Castilla Leon at 24,732.
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