Wednesday, September 07, 2005

NPAS 'Independent'...bet you 60p a ticket that they're not!

Independent Tribunals

Per Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights
1.The Text of Article 6 reads as follows:-
'In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law . . . . .

2. The Oxford English Reference Dictionary
Defines 'independent' as follows:-
'not dependent on another (person) for one's opinion or livelihood'

3. The National Parking Adjudication Service (NPAS) appoints the Adjudicators who preside over the Tribunals that are established by the terms of the RTA 1991 (De-Criminalised Parking).
NPAS is funded by Local Authorities that operate the decriminalised system (at the rate of 60p per Parking Ticket issued). NPAS does not receive any financial support from any other source, any other body or any other method.

It is therefore my opinion that such funding arrangements do not and cannot provide for the independence that is claimed by the tribunals that are assembled under the NPAS 'umbrella'.

4. We now need to establish and define the precise standards of 'Independence' that are required by Article 6, as defined and 'guarded' by the European Court of Human Rights or the European Court of Justice.

It is possible that the European Court has recorded 'precedents' that will now serve to show that the NPAS arrangements fail to meet the required standards.

We look forward to any comments or further evidence. Please send to enquiries@parkingappeals.co.uk or post on the site.

The net is closing on this whole squalid money making motorist fleecing scam.

3 comments:

Anoneumouse said...

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Anoneumouse said...

Oh bugger, I missed the opportunity. One pound for one pound and a shilling.

Anoneumouse said...

HRA 1998 section 7. - (1) A person who claims that a public authority has acted (or proposes to act) in a way which is made unlawful by section 6(1) may-

(a) bring proceedings against the authority under this Act in the appropriate court or tribunal, or

(b) rely on the Convention right or rights concerned in any legal proceedings,

but only if he is (or would be) a victim of the unlawful act.

(2) In subsection (1)(a) "appropriate court or tribunal" means such court or tribunal as may be determined in accordance with rules; and proceedings against an authority include a counterclaim or similar proceeding.

(3) If the proceedings are brought on an application for judicial review, the applicant is to be taken to have a sufficient interest in relation to the unlawful act only if he is, or would be, a victim of that act.


The decision in Tower Hamlets LBC v Begum (February 13, 2003) House of Lords, follows a number of recent Strasbourg cases which suggest that judicial review will provide adequate guarantees of fairness in a sophisticated regulatory context where the regulator’s own procedures are generally fair albeit there may be a lack of structural independence in the administrative decision making process. For example, judicial review was held to be sufficient to ensure compliance with Article 6(1) of the ECHR in the context of an intervention by IMRO in the business of an investment firm (APB Limited v United Kingdom (1998) 25 EHRR 141) and a notice issued by the Secretary of State objecting to the applicant’s appointment as chief executive of an insurance company (X v United Kingdom (1998) 25 EHRR 88). This will only apply, however, where judicial review can indeed remedy any defect (cf Kingsley where the statutory scheme would have envisaged a successful judicial review leading to the case being remitted back to the same decision maker in circumstances where the basis of the judicial review was that the decision was tainted by apparent bias on the part of the decision maker).

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