In the last two years, the amount of unpaid fines for traffic violations has increased significantly. According to the Agency for Identification Documents, Records and Data Exchange of Bosnia and Herzegovina, last year alone, that amount increased by as much as 124.2 percent.
The amount of unpaid fines this year is almost 25 million marks, while foreign citizens were fined 215 thousand marks. The trend of growth in the total debt based on unpaid fines indicates the need to strengthen the mechanisms of forced collection and enforcement control, and improve the information system for recording and monitoring fines.
“It is striking information that there are 25 million unpaid fines. Secondly, I am very interested in which department of the cantonal Ministry of Internal Affairs keeps records of these fines. If you do not pay for gas, they sue you, if you do not pay for heating, they sue you, the water supply is the same. I do not know what it is about, but that is more of a question for the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” says driver Armin Skalonja.
The collection of fines is not the responsibility of the police, we were told by the Zenica-Doboj Cantonal Ministry of Interior. Police departments undertake as much as they are competent to do, while the jurisdiction for collecting unpaid fines lies with the court in whose territory the offense was committed.
“All problems related to the occurrence of non-payment of fines are not the responsibility of the police. Within their jurisdiction, the police act very energetically and take all measures and actions permitted by law,” emphasizes the spokesperson for the Zenica-Doboj Cantonal Ministry of Interior Lejla Ekinović.
Passing new laws would not lead to improvements, and would even have a counter-effect, believes Mustafa Mehanović, a permanent court expert in the field of traffic.
“So, if we are working on passing some more obligations, measures, and we know that these are not being respected either, we are only increasing the number of articles in the law that participants, groups of participants in traffic do not respect. If you have a large number of cases, you really need to ask yourself why this is so,” emphasizes Mehanović.
“A law that has no sanctions is not enforceable. We have laws, we have sanctions, only sanctions should be applied. There is no thinking when applying sanctions. It says so and you act accordingly. Therefore, if someone does not want to pay, it is known that default interest will be charged, it is known that the court will be held,” says former Minister of Internal Affairs of the Canton Nermin Pećanac.
Confiscation of vehicles has not proven to be effective enough either. A significant number of drivers are also prone to manipulation, such as registering vehicles to a family member, or transferring the offense to another person.
