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Pay Your Fine in Time

Posted January. 24, 2005 22:42,   

한국어

Additional charges up to 77 percent are to be imposed if one fails to pay a fine in time.

Moreover, one who habitually does not pay a large amount of money in fines when he/she can afford may be subject to confinement in a detention house after trial in the court.

Up until now, many people purposefully have not paid their fines, as additional charges are not levied in case of failure of payment of fines and there is no way to punish them.

The Ministry of Justice said on January 24 that it has formulated a law to restrict violation of social orders that include imposition, collection and payment of fines, and the punishment. The ministry announced that it would give a notice of its legislation on January 25.

When the law is enacted, the current system of collections of fines that is stipulated individually in 600 or some laws will be unified.

Details of the law-

People will be subject to payment of fines when they throw away daily waste unlawfully, are spotted by unmanned devices for regulation of speeding, or fail to mark the origins of agricultural products.

Additional charges are not imposed however late people pay their fines under the current system, yet up to 77 percent of charges are to be added to fines if the new law is implemented.

A new system will also be created that confines those who do not pay a certain amount of fine for more than one year, or more than three times a year even when they can afford it in detention houses for as long as 30 days after trial in court.

Business owners that need permission may see their business permissions suspended or revoked in case they fail to pay their fine regarding their businesses for upwards of three times when they can afford to.

Also to be introduced are a new system that would allow people to pay their fines in installments or to delay payment when economic hardship renders them unable to pay and a deficits disposal system that administrative organizations use to suspend the fine collection process under certain conditions when people do not have the ability to pay.

How the law was legislated-

Imposition of fines is among the four restrictive measures applied to those who violate administrative rules. It has been used most frequently following punishment, yet there have been doubts over its effectiveness, as its execution rate is too low.

Execution rates of punishment, restrictive penalties in case of violation of rules and transgression penalties stand at 98.6 percent, 84 percent, and 83 percent, respectively, while the fine collection rate remains at a meager 50 percent or some.

That is because there has been no effective way to force those who do not pay their fines to pay them, while those who fail to pay their penalty fines for violation of rules are subject to summary decisions, and those who do not pay their transgression penalty fines see their business licenses revoked or suspended.

Judicial chief Ahn Yeong-wook from the Justice Ministry noted, “We are seeing an increasing number of people who habitually do not pay their fines on purpose, so we have drawn up a systematic law regarding imposition and collection of fines.”



Jin-Young Hwang buddy@donga.com