The Legault government is preparing to propose the establishment of a system that could relieve Quebec’s municipal courts of thousands of parking infraction files, we have learned. The Press.
A legislative change which should be tabled in the National Assembly would allow a duly sworn municipal official – and enjoying a certain independence – to hear the arguments of motorists and decide their case, according to our information.
Judges sitting in municipal courts are overwhelmed by cases involving violations of parking regulations. In Montreal, they have to look into approximately 450,000 cases of this nature each year: some fines are formally contested, but most cases are opened due to a simple lack of response.
In addition to the significant financial costs associated with the processing of all these tickets by judges, congestion has also forced the abandonment of numerous prosecutions in recent years. With the pandemic, some 35,000 files fell through. So many fines for which the City of Montreal will not see the color.
The new system would be largely modeled on Ontario, where several municipalities – such as Toronto and Mississauga – have implemented such a system of administrative monetary penalties. In the Ontario metropolis, a first “reviewer” looks at the contested tickets, before a “hearing officer” returns to them in the event of a request. His decision is final. The system “makes disputes simpler, faster and more practical,” assures Toronto on its website.
The office of the Minister of Justice, Simon Jolin-Barrette, did not want to comment on the information from The Press.
A “formal request” from Montreal
The bill would directly respond to a request from the Plante administration, which in 2020 was looking for ways to unclog the Montreal Municipal Court.
Administrative monetary sanctions, “this is a formal request that I myself made to the Minister of Justice,” declared the mayor in a press briefing in February 2020. “Montréal has the largest criminal court in the country. I’m not proud of that because it means that we deal with a lot of cases that should be administrative and which go to court. »
The request was made in May 2019. The office of the Minister of Justice at the time, Sonia LeBel, then indicated that the proposal was “interesting” and that it would be the subject of an analysis with the Ministry of Justice. Municipal affairs. Quebec noted, however, that this required “significant and comprehensive legislative changes, in particular to the Code of Criminal Procedure and municipal laws.”