Many citizens contacted us to complain of similar situations. They had a valid sticker allowing them to park in a specific SRRR zone (street parking reserved for residents) but had, nonetheless, received a Statement of offence. Unfortunately, their stickers had fallen from their vehicles.
Despite the evidence they had submitted in support of their non-guilty plea, their files were sent by the Municipal Court administration to be heard before a judge: they would, therefore, have to go to the Court to present their arguments.
They found it unfair to be submitted to this constraining procedure for Statements of offence which were clearly not justified. They asked our office to look into the matter and see how these statements could be cancelled, without them having to go to Court.
Our investigation confirmed that many SRRR stickers sold to citizens, in 2015, were defective and detaching from the vehicles. As a result, many Statements of offence were issued to citizens parked in their SRRR zones, most of them for being parked there “without a sticker”.
When the SPVM was made aware of this problem, it acted quickly to stop the issuance of new statements, in similar circumstances. The Municipal Court was also informed of the situation.
In the case of Statements of offence issued for having parked in a SRRR zone “without a sticker”: if the citizen provided evidence that he held a valid sticker on the date of the offence, the file was closed at the stage of administrative review.
In the case of our plaintiffs, however, their explanations had not been retained and their files had not been closed.
We noted that, in these instances, the offence was different: it did not refer to parking “without a sticker” but rather “with an expired or revoked permit”.
As it turned out, these citizens had stuck their new sticker on their vehicle without removing the old one. When the new sticker got detached, therefore, the expired sticker was the one that showed.
We found it unfair that these files were not also closed if proof was provided showing that the citizen had a valid sticker, on the date of the offence. We discussed this new situation with the SPVM. The SPVM agreed that these statements for parking “with an expired or revoked permit” should also be withdrawn.
The SPVM prepared a “Request to withdraw the Statement of offence” for each of the 11 such files. The Municipal Court officially closed them all, at the beginning of 2016.
