‘For whom is this worthwhile?’
Szerző: Társaság a Szabadságjogokért
Létrehozva: 2010. december 6, hétfő
Módosítva: 2018. február 8, csütörtök
Local activists of HCLU (Hungarian Civil Liberties Union) – who operate legal aid service points – have reported numerous times that the poorest people were penalized for petty crimes with massive fines.
The defendant of this case tried to travel on the bus from Farkaslyuk to Ózd (cities in Hungary) using his brother’s bus pass. He had no money to buy a pass, which is why he took his brother’s.
He was caught, and the police were called. Because he had all the personal documents of his brother on him (4 documents in total), he committed a crime: he was charged with defrauding documents. He has been fined 250.000 HUF (~1000€), which he obviously cannot pay, since he travelled without a pass, because he had no money. He will be jailed – and it will cost 900.000 HUF (~3500€) for taxpayers.
Although the Court has considered the perpetrator’s circumstances and applied the lowest penalty rate (it must be noted here, that Court had the opportunity to impose a penalty of 30 days instead of the above 100 days, and could also have imposed public service work on him as the punishment), it is such a sum that he will not be able to pay, and so he will be jailed for 100 days.
The defendant brought the warrant too late (which was delivered without any hearings) to the legal aid service point of HCLU (HCLUpoint of Farkaslyuk city), thus there was no possibility for legal redress any more.
So in this case the punishment won’t return the caused loss, it will cause an even greater loss for the whole society instead, since the punishment will be imprisonment.
4500 passes could be purchased for the line that passes between Farkaslyuk and Ózd for the amount of money spent on having him imprisoned.
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