Traffic Enforcement Centre- Is It Legal????

[tomtubby]

Lamma

 

That is why judicial review against TEC is the only way forward.

Also, there is too much influence from the BPA !!!

[lamma]

JR is fraught with 'get outs' for the council. It will require a top flight brief and even then it will be fraught.

[Marincor]

Hello Guys, after a couple of PC crashes and being crazily busy as a result, I have taken ages to find this post again but I see it has moved back to the TEC argument and away from the disabled driver issue that first peeked my interest.

 

Jamberson and Green_Mean asked for more legislation protecting disabled drivers and blue badge holders which I have but I don't know if I should post it here or start/update a separate post.

 

Can admin let me know if I should post it here, start a new one or update an existing one on the issue?

 

With regards the TEC, this is my understanding:

 

The purpose of membership to any organisation is to gain privileges. Member local authorities gain the privilege of being able to use the TEC as a clearing house for the allegations they make against motorists. They do not have to prove these allegations as Civil Parking Enforcement was designed to operate on a presumption of guilt - a description confirmed by the Ministry of Justice. That may be satisfactory to those who gain from this arrangement, but it falls well short of the principles established in 1,000 years of English law and the accepted burdens of proof under which judicial courts operate. The only redeeming feature of this questionable arrangement is that bailiffs and bailiff companies cannot be members of the TEC.

 

Although officially designated as an administrative court, the Traffic Enforcement Centre does not possess either the power or the status to apply general Civil Procedure Rules to the parking claims that commence within its jurisdiction, one effect of which was the creation a vacuum within the legal profession in the matter of parking enforcement. Another consequence was the creation of CPR 75 which uniquely applies to the Traffic Enforcement Centre, thus within the limited status of being created as an administrative court, the TEC has its own set of rules. Though misleadingly titled as the ‘Code of Practice’, these are in fact the rules of the court.

 

With that said, if you word a Witness Statement right, even though the council get to challenge one, they will be revoked or cancelled rather than refused.

[Fair-Parking]

I have just come across this thread and I am rather interested in its comments. First the Traffic Enforcement Centre.org was my website. It is currently down pending an update that requires the assistance of the webhosts - BT whose contact I understand is off work at the moment, but it will be back shortly. In the meantime I would like to confirm that the TEC IS a court but only an administrative one and not a judicial one. There are no judges, solicitors, barristers, hearings or public access, it exists purely to serve what it describes as its 'members' - the local authorities who all pay a subscription that ultimately will allow them to ask for authority to issue warrants. Incidently the TEC never challenged the comments on that website

 

The TEC does not have the power of decision and it upholds the one aspect that binds the whole parking enforcement - a presumption of guilt - a description I had formulated myself before having it independantly confirmed by a senior representative of the MoJ in a face to face conversation in March 2011. Our judicial courts do not have that luxury.

 

The last post quoted two long paragraphs which I had written a couple of years back. I have no reason to alter any of the words. In short nothing has happened since I composed them to show they were incorrect. I did carry a rye grin for another thread directed at NMAG carried the warning that Green & Mean was never gong to post again because he didn't see why commercial sites could copy what he said. If he is still reading this forum, may I be permmitted the opposite observation that in this case it is a quotation from my words on a commercial site that were quoted on a free forum, but then I take the view that if you write anything for public consumption then don't be surprised if the public requotes what you said. Your're welcome.

 

I not surprised that both Jamberson & Green Mean have taken the views of people who have or are serving in local authorities with one confirming that he worked in the bailiff departement. Nor am I surprised that the OP and others took great umbrage at what they saw as instructions to pay up.

 

However despite the implications that refusal to pay and bow to the system which Jamberson and G & M were preaching, a presumption of guilt is no way to impose dictatorial system that is NEVER backed by a judical court. Even Tom Tubby was not spared their wrath despite the fact that everything she posted was entirely correct. Nor is the sentiment that this thread was encouraging people to ignore the law a fair comment.

 

I have found that the problem with people who work in Councils is that they whilst they are extremely clued up on how parking tickets are administered up to when the TEC authorises a warrant, then have no idea of what happens afterwards and how from this point the system is completely abused by councils and bailiffs, that is because with few exceptions they have (unlawfully) passed the case on to third party bailiffs whilst council officials seem to believe that everything is hunky dory. By constantly trying to assert that the TEC issues warrants when it does not, it is fairly obvious that the one who worked in the Council bailiff department is admitting that his local authority have never issued warrants for parking. That makes all their actions unlawful from that point, thus anybody refusing to co-operate is not disobeying the laws and should be encouraged rather than condemned for standing firm against what Mr Justice Owen described in the High Court of Justice on 17th July as a council 'reign of terror against its own citizens'.

 

What this boils down to is that councils universally believe that the vailidity of the PCN is all that matters and it is this sentiment which comes over most strongly in Jamberson's and Green & Mean's comments. The validity or otherwise of the PCN is not enough. When Fair Parking challenges councils it never challenges the validity or otherwise of the PCN, it is always about bailiffs trying to enforce them unlawfully. The problem is ALL councils I have dealt with appear completely unable to differentiate between a valid PCN and the unlawful methods used to enforce them.

 

The last words go the HHJ Platt speaking Romford County Court on 20th June 2011 where i was in attendance. 'Whether or not a PCN is valid, the local authiority and its agfents must act within the law at all times'.

[lamma]

Well said. I add that the TECs internal rules are are not in my view rules of Court at all. As per the above the TEC has no Judicial powers (is not Judicial) and their 'rules' are their own internal processing rules. "a rule of procedure made by the Judges under the powers conferred on them by the Judicature Acts is a law, though English-speaking lawyers do not commonly call it so, because it is more convenient to use the appropriate term " Rule of Court."" As they have no judicial powers - which I believe the MoJ has confirmed - they are outside the Judicature Acts. The County Court rules that do apply are clearly laid out in CPR part 75 (75.6 ?). Furthermore Rules of Court are published officially as Rules of Court. They have to be. the TECs internal processing 'rules' are not. Nor can they be as the TEC does not have the powers to make real Rules of Court. Not only that but some of their internal processing rules would clearly fail the tests of Administrative Law. But as these internal processing rules aren't law the tests do not apply. See the switcheroo they pull ? ? Of course getting a real court to uphold this is another matter entirely. Especially as the do not have Judicial Immunity per se, the umbrella of Judicial Immunity is extended to cover them (as it is for adjudicators I believe). i can't see the real courts tampering with that.

[Fair-Parking]

Lamma makes a good point in that the rules of the judicial courts are printed and are available for all to see whilst the TEC follows no such procedure and their rules are kept from the public. However the TEC is a court but because it is an administrative one it's rules are diected at only one form of party - its members and subscribers, the local authorities. They all receive copies of the rules which the TEC presumably believes is nothng to do with the rest of us. Far better of course to be more transparent and let everybody see them.

 

Nevertheless as no other rules exist, these must be the rules of the court if only by default and that is an important point because without them there would be no rules at all. LAs must abide by these rules. It is not when LAs stick to these rules that problems arise, it is when they are abused under the guise the TEC Code of Practice is merely a 'guide' and can be ignored by LAs and bailiffs who then of course implement their own 'rules' and make them up as they go along - always of course to suit themsleves and very often so as to act unlawfully and contemptously towards the public.

 

Thus the TEC rules are by best option by far, for the alternative is chaos and abuse bringing about the failure of LAs to print warrants, for baliffs to not carry them with them and for bailiff to print them theirselves in order to backdate them. The most obvious product of the failure to abide by TEC rules comes in the form of ANPR bailiffs, who exist purely because LAs and Bailiff completely ignore the TEC's rules.

[lamma]

As the TEC does not have Judicial powers or function and as the TEC does not fall under the various Judicature Acts they can NOT be bona fide Rules of Court. Let alone that they unpublished to the public which is enough it owns right. As FP says, in so many words, they are a private matter. I have to add that it is a mistake in my opinion to take the 'as if' statements in CPR part 75 and read them as 'is'. Also it is extremely difficult to shoehorn these internal TEC rules into the history of the powers to make rules. Impossible I say. My view is that the TEC cannot publish these internal rules. not only for the reason cited above about the tests of decisions made under Administrative Law but also because they have no powers to make Rules of Court ! If they did publish them as Rules of Court they would be open to challenge and that is something they do not want. Some history:- "Before 1833 there was no statutory body which had power to make rules of court having statutory force and effect to regulate the practice and procedure of the superior courts of common law or of the Court of Chan-cery or other courts. Before that time, and perhaps for many centuries before then, it was the judges of each of the superior courts of common law at Westminster, and the Lord Chancellor in the case of the Court of Chancery, who exercised the power to issue orders or directions to regulate their own proceedings in their own several courts as occasion demanded from time to time. They did not do so under any statutory authority but under the inherent jurisdiction of the courts to regulate their own processes. In 1830 Parliament conferred power on the judges of the superior courts of common law to make general rules to regulate proceedings in their own courts respectively, but although these rules were not to have statutory force the judges did in fact make such rules. In 1833 Parliament for the first time delegated to the judges of the superior common law courts, acting in concert, power to make rules of court relating mainly to the mode of pleading (but without power to dispense with the plea of the 'general issue') which were to have the force of law, and to be treated as if enacted by Parliament, and, acting under this new power, the judges proceeded to make such rules, which were the first rules of court to have the force of law. Nevertheless, during the middle period of the nineteenth century, from 1833 to 1875, the practice and procedure of the superior courts of common law, and of the Court of Chancery, were regulated by or by virtue of statute rather than rules of court. In the Court of Chancery, the power to make rules of court, within a limited scope, was introduced in 1850 and was later extended to cover the whole procedure of the court, and it was under this power that the great Consolidated Orders 1860 were issued. In 1873 there was scheduled to the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 a body of rules called the 'Rules of Court' which were to have the force of law, but they were replaced by a revised and greatly improved body of rules, also called the 'Rules of Court', which were scheduled to the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1875. These rules of court were superseded by the Rules of the Supreme Court 1883, made by the Rule Commit-tee to which greatly extended powers were delegated to make rules of court having the force of law. They came into operation on 24 October 1883. These rules were frequently amended, and remained in force until they were partially revised and superseded by the Rules of the Supreme Court (Revision) 1962 and soon thereafter wholly revised and superseded by the Rules of the Supreme Court 1965, which came into operation on 1 October 1966. Thus it was that, for the first time since 1883, the entire Rules of the Supreme Court, revised and rewritten, reorganised and restructured, were made and issued as a complete, integrated body of rules of court. They revoked all the former rules and orders, some 144 made since 1883, and repealed the provisions of nine Acts of Parliament. On 25 April 1999 the Rules of the Supreme Court and the County Court Rules were replaced by the Civil Procedure Rules, the Schedules to which re-enacted various provisions of the former rules. The Civil Pro-cedure Rules themselves have been amended regularly since their commencement." I can't shoehorn the TEC into that and neither, I suggest, can the TEC