Article from: www.thenewspaper.com/news/16/1604.asp

2/15/2007

Edinburgh, Scotland Cancels All Unpaid Parking Tickets
All parking tickets issued since 1998 in Edinburgh, Scotland are invalid. City invalidates $12.7 million in unpaid ticket debt.

The city of Edinburgh, Scotland canceled 75,000 unpaid parking tickets issued between 1998 and June 1, 2006 because the tickets themselves were illegal. The city government refuses to refund the motorists who had paid unlawful citations, but those who avoided payment have had £6.5 million (US $12.7 million) in debt canceled.

"We have taken external legal advice, which has forced us to write off a number of unpaid tickets issued before June 1 last year," a city council spokesman told the Glasgow Herald newspaper.

The move is an admission that the decriminalized parking citations issued over the past eight years have been invalid. Nonetheless, city officials refuse to refund any money that had been collected from motorists unlawfully in the past. Several other UK cities began canceling outstanding ticket fines after attorney Barrie Segal won a High Court decision stating that parking tickets that did not indicate the date of issuance were invalid (read decision).

Source: The 6.5m parking gaffe as tickets are cancelled (The Glasgow Herald (UK), 2/15/2007)

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