Unpaid Covid fines not worth pursuing, judge says

Dozens if not hundreds of unpaid Covid-19 fines are pending in court, while a judge has stated that re-registering the cases would burden the state with unnecessary costs.

The issue emerged recently when the police tried on two occasions to re-register approximately 20 cases involving unpaid court-ordered fines, issued during the 2020-2022 pandemic period, which citizens refused to pay, Philenews reports.

While initially the cases were registered in the Nicosia district, subsequently the defendants were not possible to find, either because they had changed address or because they hid.

The result was that when the time for their trial came, they were absent since it had not possible to serve them with the summons.

Courts in such cases, give two chances to the prosecuting authority to locate the offenders. When this is not possible, the prosecution is discontinued, and the case is withdrawn.

However, those with pending cases against them are kept on a special list available to authorities, and when they are involved for any reason with the police again, the earlier pending cases are re-activated.

According to the news outlet a note written by a judge in a case filed at the beginning of August, said re-registration of such cases is not allowed due to the time elapsed, as well as the fact that the Covid-19 regulations were made for a specific reason which no longer exist.

The need for measures has disappeared and the pursuit of such expired cases will simply financially burden the state, the judge is reported to have written.

Following this development, it is expected that legal services will be requested to opine on what should be done with the outstanding cases of Covid-19 fines. In the event that the legal service insists on taking the cases to court, a special writ will be sought to compel the court to relist them. Otherwise, they will either remain pending or be permanently withdrawn.

However, all this raises the issue of unequal processing, towards the law-abiding citizens who got an out-of-court fine during the pandemic and paid it, or those who were taken to court and fined, and subsequently paid in instalments.

The matter is expected to be clarified in September following scrutiny of the implications for at least dozens of other cases pending in the courts.

By this time, the possibility of hearing cases concerning Covid-19 fines over five years after the pandemic’s end, would also need to be examined.