#reasonable excuse

[lexlawuk]

HMRC’s New Digital VAT Correction: Legal Guidance & Appeals

What Businesses Need to Know HMRC has fundamentally updated the process for correcting VAT return errors by withdrawing the traditional VAT652 paper form and making digital notification the standard route. Businesses and agents must now use the secure Government Gateway platform to disclose and correct errors efficiently, with digital submissions being processed far faster than previous written…

HMRC’s New Digital VAT Correction: Legal Guidance & Appeals

[lexlawuk]

HMRC relaxes late filing penalty for Self Assessment tax returns

HMRC relaxes late filing penalty for Self Assessment tax returns

HMRC have confirmed that Self Assessment customers will not receive a penalty for their late online tax return if they file by 28 February 2021. Given the COVID-19 pandemic anyone who cannot file their return by the 31 January 2021 deadline will not receive a late filing penalty if they file online by 28 February 2021. However, taxpayers are still obliged to pay their bill by 31 January 2021.…

View On WordPress

[johnbrace]

What are the reasons you can leave your home in Wirral during the coronavirus pandemic under the new Tier 4 restrictions?

What are the reasons you can leave your home in Wirral during the coronavirus pandemic under the new Tier 4 restrictions?

[johnbrace]

What are the reasons you can leave your home in Wirral during the coronavirus pandemic under the new Tier 4 restrictions?

What are the reasons you can leave your home in Wirral during the coronavirus pandemic under the new Tier 4 restrictions?

What are the reasons you can leave your home in Wirral during the coronavirus pandemic under the new Tier 4 restrictions?                                    Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) No 3 and (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 – public health regulations connected to the coronavirus pandemic By John Brace (Editor) and Leonora Brace (Co-Editor) First publication…

View On WordPress

[makesworthacc]

Reasonable excuse – does coronavirus count?

HMRC may allow an appeal against a penalty if the taxpayer has a ‘reasonable excuse’ for why, say, they filed a return late or paid their tax late.

A ‘reasonable excuse’ is something that prevented a taxpayer from meeting a tax obligation despite the fact that they took reasonable care. HMRC take a hard line as regards what they constitute as a ‘reasonable excuse’; providing the following examples of ‘acceptable’ reasonable excuses:

the taxpayer’s partner or another close relative died shortly before the tax return or payment deadline;

an unexpected stay in hospital that prevented the taxpayer from dealing with their tax affairs;

a life threatening illness;

the failure of a computer or software just before or while the taxpayer was preparing their tax return;

service issues with HMRC;

a fire, flood or theft which prevented the completion of a tax return;

postal delays which could not have been predicted; or

delays relating to a disability.

By contrast, HMRC cite the following example of excuses that they will not accept as a valid reason for failing to meet a tax obligation:

relying on someone else to send the return and they failed to send it;

a cheque or payment bounced due to insufficient funds;

the taxpayer found HMRC’s online system too complicated;

the taxpayer did not receive a reminder from HMRC; or

the taxpayer made a mistake on their return.

Impact of coronavirus

HMRC have confirmed that they will consider coronavirus as a reasonable excuse. Where claiming this, the taxpayer should explain in their appeal how they were affected by coronavirus. As a rule of thumb, HMRC are more likely to accept it as a reasonable excuse where the virus led to one of the circumstances listed above as ‘acceptable reasonable excuses’. Thus the contention that the taxpayer had a reasonable excuse for failing to meet a tax obligation would be strong if a partner or close relative (such as a parent) died of Coronavirus around the tax deadline, the taxpayer was seriously ill with the virus or was in hospital unexpectedly.

Where the taxpayer appeals on the grounds that they had a reasonable excuse for failing to file a return or pay a tax bill, they should file the return or pay the bill as soon as they are able after the reason for the reasonable excuse has been resolved.

Source:- https://makesworth.co.uk/reasonable-excuse-does-coronavirus-count/

For more information On Reasonable excuse – does coronavirus count, Book a Free Consultation

Following us:

Twitter

[imspardagus]

The need for necessity: a look at “reasonable excuse”

In this piece I am going to take a look at the regulations that contain the actual law that has been put in place to contain us – and, the Government hopes, the Coronavirus, Corvid-19: the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020. What I am not going to do is to examine whether the regulations were intra or ultra vires. I will leave that debate to better minds than mine.

But there still needs to be clarity. Legislating in haste is never a good idea. Nor is legislating to save face (see the history of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991if you need confirmation). Laws, particularly laws that affect people’s freedom and their relationship with authority, and threaten them with criminal sanction need to be clear and certain. That requires careful consideration and self-restraint on the part of politicians, not something they are good at. But these regulations were made at a time of unprecedented emergency. So much so that Parliamentary scrutiny was set aside. Since they came into force, social media has been awash with claims about what they do, and don’t, allow, while reports have been made of overzealous policing – most of them from the police themselves – based, we must assume, on what local forces believe that they say.

No good can come of this uncertainty. The public needs to trust the police. The police need to have the trust of the public. Trust cannot be demanded. It must be won. If people feel that they are being treated unfairly or oppressively by authority they will become rebellious and the rule of law that binds us to the common good will be damaged.

My purpose here is not to nitpick but to set in train a debate that will help us all clarify the effect of the restrictions. It is my hope that the on-line legal community will stir itself to critique what I have written and by that means bring about a fair consensus of opinion on which we can all rely.

Apologies to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I can only consider the English version of the regulations.

Before I start, a word about my credentials: before I retired 10 years ago, I was a barrister and, for over 30 years, a government lawyer. For 20 of those years I was a senior lawyer in charge of a team that worked at the highest levels of government and I have drafted hundreds of statutory instruments like these regulations, helped to prepare numerous Acts of Parliament, advised ministers as to their powers and interpreted legislation.

That does not mean much in the grand scheme. There are many practising lawyers and judges against whose skills mine are insignificant. It is those people we need to hear from. I have not written this to show how clever I am, or to prove myself right, but to give them a ball to kick around, a cock-shy. Nonetheless, I have given it my best shot.

Where to begin?

Let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). These regulations have been made -

“…in response to the serious and imminent threat to public health which is posed by the incidence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in England.”

That is in the preamble, the part of the regulations that sets out the Secretary of State’s powers to make them (they are what is known as “delegated legislation”, which is to say that they are made by the authority of Parliament and must be in conformity with the powers – vires- that it has bestowed by primary legislation – an Act). If those powers are exceeded, the regulations can be set aside – quashed – by the courts and actions taken in reliance on them will be unlawful. But on the other side of the coin, it means that a court looking at what the regulations mean will try to find an interpretation that fits within the powers. And that in turn means that if someone is authorised by the regulations to do something or required by the regulations not to do something then the courts will try to construe the authorisation or prohibition in a way consistent with, not broader than, the enabling powers.

In the preamble, the Secretary of State confirms that he –

“considers that the restrictions and requirements imposed by these Regulations are proportionate to what they seek to achieve, which is a public health response to that threat.”

These opening words are important because they are the benchmark against which all that follows must be measured. They reflect a statutory limitation placed on the making of regulations such as these (section 45D(1) and (2) of the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984 which, oddly, is not cited in the preamble) so it is not so much a question of what the Secretary of State “considers” as what he must abide by.

From here on, my focus is going to be on Regulation 6 and the enforcement that attends it.

Reasonable excuse

Regulation 6 starts well, with a simple and clear statement:

“During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.”

By the time we arrive at regulation 6, the “emergency period” has already been defined, in regulation 3. It started at 1pm on 26 March and all we need to know is that we are in the middle of it.

We do need to know what is meant by “the place where they are living” and here we hit our first uncertainty because it is not defined. Regulation 6(3) offers us help but only is so far as what is included in the place where we are living:

“the premises where they live together with any garden, yard, passage, stair, garage, outhouse or other appurtenance of such premises”

The absence of a comma between “live” and “together is poor drafting (sadly not the only example) but the ambiguity it produces hardly signifies.

The regulations could have used other formulations: home, place of abode, normal residence. For reasons which probably have to do with the need to keep people where they were at the time the emergency period started, whether it was their home or someone else’s, or where they have ended up if they have had to vacate their home, the drafters went for a broader, less specific “place where they are living”.

But this does raise the question whether that place can change over time. Jumping ahead to look at the list of “reasonable excuses”, it would appear that it can: see regulation 6(2)(l) –

“to move house where reasonably necessary”.

That implies that you can change the place where you are living.

But it does not mean that you can wander from place to place. This is not a case of “wherever I lay my hat is home”.

But what about that list in regulation 6(3)?  Not “any garden, yard, passage, stair, garage, outhouse”. That would be too broad. But any which is an “appurtenance” of the premises. What does that mean?

The legal meaning of “appurtenance” is a right, benefit or privilege that allows for the use and enjoyment of a property that belongs to you. The most obvious is a right of way. If your house can only be accessed through someone else’s property, then you have a limited right to come and go over their land. That right attaches to your property. It is an appurtenance. But there may be others. Your ownership of your property may come with the right to park in a residents’ car park, to use a communal garden, to come and go through the common parts of a block of flats, to use a bin store, to drive to a garage separate from the actual living accommodation over land owned by the freeholder of the estate where you live. All these, if they were part of the package that you acquired when you bought your property, are appurtenances. And all of them, according to regulation 6(3), extend the boundaries of “the place where you live”.

They do not have to be your appurtenances. All they need to be are the appurtenances of the place where you are living. If they are, you have not left that place when you are availing yourself of them.

Regulation 6(2) does not say in terms that you have the right to leave one part of the place where you are living to visit another, detached, part of it, but it does not prohibit that either, and that is important because what is claimed to be forbidden must be clearly and unambiguously forbidden. That is what the criminal law demands. As we will shortly see, the list of “reasonable excuses” in regulation 6(2) is not exhaustive. There can be others. If, say, your car is parked in the residents’ car park, across the road, and the residents’ car park is an appurtenance of the place where you are living and you need your car to go shopping, it seems “reasonable” that you should be able to leave your house to go to your car.

Another issue has been picked up by one of Twitter’s legal experts, David Allen Green. In a blog, he has suggested that as the regulations are drafted it does not matter why you are away from the place where you are living provided that you had a “reasonable excuse” when you left it. It is hard to deny the force of that as a strict interpretation. However, I have to say I rather doubt the courts will want to bless a view that drives the proverbial coach and horses through a very important piece of regulatory legislation.  

Before we leave the place where you are living however let’s just celebrate the good fortune of the homeless. Sadly, I jest. It amounts to not being subject to the restrictions on not leaving the place where you live without reasonable excuse (regulation 6(4)). So they are not confined to the miserable shop doorway or park bench that they had made their place of refuge on 26 March. They are free to be moved on and otherwise ignored just as before. But at least they can’t be fined into the bargain. Lucky people.

So let us now move on to what constitutes a “reasonable excuse” for leaving the place where you are living.

Regulation 6(2)

There has been a lot of careless misinformation about reasonable excuse. Several police forces have written the word “essential” into the restrictions. Let us nail that one straightaway. The word “essential” appears only once in the list of reasonable excuses, qualifying “upkeep” in regulation 6(2)(a). There is no concept of “essential” travel, “essential” exercise, “essential” medical assistance or “essential” care and support of the vulnerable.

I have already pointed out that the list in regulation 6(2) is not exhaustive. What does that mean and what are the implications?

Legal definitions come in two forms: exhaustive and inclusive. In an exhaustive definition, we are told what a word means. That provides its absolute limits. An example exists in the regulations themselves:

““coronavirus” means severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)”

(regulation 1(3)(a))

So no other respiratory syndrome, just that one.

But an inclusive definition merely provides examples. It says, in effect, these things definitely come within the definition, but leaves open up the possibility that there may be other things that do.

Regulation 6(2) opens with the statement that –

“For the purposes of paragraph (1), a reasonable excuse includes the need”

That means that the list that follows is not an exhaustive list of reasonable excuses. The ones it lists are definitely reasonable excuses but others may exist.

An inclusory list does more than that, however. It also establishes guidelines for other contenders for inclusion. It says, in effect, “excuses like these”. If you want to claim a reasonable excuse that is not on the list you have got to show that it resembles those that are.

I am not going to hazard a guess at what might be a reasonable excuse that is not on the list but the authorities must be open to the possibility that something is.

Okay, I willhazard a guess, because it has already come up in the media. If you are a woman (or a man or a child) who is living under threat from your partner, or someone else in your house, it is a reasonable excuse if, to place yourself beyond danger, you leave the house. That much is explicitly covered by regulation 6(2)(m) –

“to avoid injury or illness or to escape a risk of harm”.

But suppose you leave to avoid the risk to another? Your child, say. Or, if you are a child, you leave home because your mother is fleeing. That surely must be a reasonable excuse, by association with regulation 6(2)(m). But then again, suppose you leave the home not because of a threat of harm but because it has become intolerable for you to stay? Can it be that the law requires you to remain? That is a more uncertain situation which requires judgment, proportion and discretion.

On whom does the onus of proving a non-listed reasonable excuse fall? Ultimately you. If the case goes to trial, it cannot fall to the prosecution to prove that you have no reasonable excuse, though once you have tendered what you believe to be one they may have to show that it wasn’t. I will come back to this when I look at enforcement.

For now I want to look at the listed excuses that are most likely to affect us and address any problems that I see.

The first excuse has been mis-categorised as “essential shopping”. Both words are wrong. In a curious tautology, the excuse starts with –

“the need … to obtain basic necessities, including food and medical supplies”.

It is not hard to see the difficulty facing the drafter of this. No doubt the policy instruction was that we needed to curtail mere retail therapy trips. But “the need to obtain basic necessities” opens up a whole landscape of uncertainty. What is a necessity? What is a basic necessity? What constitutes a “need” for one?

Clearly basic necessities go beyond food and medicine, because the regulation says that they “include” these, thereby indicating that food and medicine are only examples. But how to we arrive at a rational, workable understanding of what the drafters meant by “a need … for basic necessities”?

In vast areas of the world a bowl of rice and a jug of clean water constitute the basic necessities of life. That and shelter. For us in the self-pampering remainder of the world, bread and milk may be regarded as necessities (but not if you are gluten or dairy intolerant) whereas elsewhere they are luxuries. But we take our idea of need and necessity well beyond these limits. Bedding, heating, hot and cold water, refrigeration, crockery, clothing, even TV, all these are often regarded as necessities. Groceries, as a classification, tend to be regarded as necessities, but is caviar – manifestly a grocery – a necessity? Is St Agur cheese a necessity? Can anyone really claim that pork medallions are a basic necessity? Ice-cream? Coffee? And this is before we get to alcohol and tobacco.  or school uniforms?

And these are just generic notions. When it comes down to specifics, Can anyone claim that 24 toilet rolls are a basic necessity? In the West, shoes are a necessity. But is a new pair of shoes a basic necessity if you have at least one sound pair at home?

We tend not to think about it but most of what we buy is not the result of need but of income-based lifestyle choices: neither basic nor necessary except in the version of reality to which we adhere.

So how should the police go about enforcing the reasonable excuse of obtaining basic necessities? What help can we give them?

The starting place, perhaps unhelpfully, is that regulation 6(2)(a) does not place any specific restriction on the words. It expressly excludes no form of food or medicine and it indicates that even these are not the limit of basic necessities.

Perhaps the most direct help comes from elsewhere in the regulations. Because in regulation 5, restrictions are placed on the kinds of business that can remain open to trade. Businesses that can continue are listed in Part 3 of Schedule 3. They include:

·     Food retailers (includingfood markets and supermarkets)

·     Off licences (includingbreweries)

·     Newsagents

·     Non-dispensing pharmacies

·     Homeware and hardware stores

·     Post offices

·     Banks and cash points

·     Pet shops.

If the regulations specifically allow these to remain open for business, then there is a strong inference that people are permitted to do business with them. And that is confirmed by the final words of regulation 6(2)(a)

“including from any business listed in Part 3 of Schedule 2.”

And that implies that their products, or at least some of them, can be taken to fall within the ambit of basic necessities, because there is no other construction that does not result in an intention of the law being frustrated. If an off-licence – primarily a purveyor of alcohol – is included, then it is reasonable to assume that alcohol is a basic necessity. If a newsagent – primarily a purveyor of newspapers, magazines and tobacco products – is included, then it is reasonable to assume that tobacco and the printed media are basic necessities. If pet shops are included then it is reasonable to assume that pet food is a basic necessity. And so on.

If, generically, this is true, then is there any justification for claiming that some of the produce that falls within those categories is a basic necessity but some is not?

Here it may be useful to return to that preambular “commitment” of the Secretary of State. Remember –

“the restrictions and requirements imposed by these Regulations are proportionate to what they seek to achieve, which is a public health response to that threat.”

Does it serve, proportionately or otherwise, any public health response to Coronavirus to say that a pack of Tesco sausages is a basic necessity but their 32-day dry aged Cote de Boeuf is not? No. In fact there is an opposing case to be made, that if those who would normally opt for the Cote de Boeuf are required to eschew it in favour of the Tesco sausages a shortage of supply may occur making the handling of the crisis worse.

We should go easy on the drafters of regulation 6(2)(a). They were working in a flat out panic to produce something that looked plausibly like controls. The temptation would have been to use language that appeared to import meaning without requiring too much precision. Sadly, when regulations come to be enforced, this expedient cracks open to reveal a nest of issues. It behoves all of us to seek a pragmatic resolution, one that is neither Draconian nor laissez-faire, one that serves the purpose. And the police and those others charged with enforcement would do well to have regard to regulation 8(8):

“A relevant person may only exercise the power in paragraph (3), (5) or (6) if the relevant person considers that it is a necessary and proportionate means of ensuring compliance with the requirement.”

While we are on the subject of the meaning of regulation 6(2)(a), the excuse does not simply permit trips to the shops. Other businesses that are permitted to remain open are those that provide “hot and cold food for consumption off the premises” – takeaways, in other words. So your trip to the local chippy is sanctioned despite its not being expressly listed as a reasonable excuse. And it does not limit you to one trip, or any other number of trips. The question it poses on each occasion that you are out is whether you are out for the permitted purpose.

In practical terms, if Tesco don’t have what you need, you are entitled to find out if Sainsbury’s or Morrisons or your local corner shop do. Just don’t use it as an excuse to be out all day.

Regulation 6(2)(a) extends the reasonable excuse beyond getting basic necessities for members of your own household. It covers –

“supplies for the essential upkeep, maintenance and functioning of the household”.

But I think the same arguments apply as to interpretation.

Regulation 6(2)(a) also allows you the excuse of leaving your place of living to obtain stuff for “vulnerable persons”. Other provisions supplement that. I will look at these separately.

But let’s now move along to exercise. Again, this “reasonable excuse” has suffered from the misdescription of “essential exercise” and from the imposition of a limitation of one bout of exercise per person per day. None of this is reflected in regulation 6(2)(b) which simply says:

“to take exercise either alone or with other members of their household”

That’s it. No numerical or time limitation no qualification as to the type of exercise. No limitation as to the location of the exercise. Nothing to tell you that you can’t exercise while exercising your dog, or even your pet crocodile. Or someone else’s (though beware of the risk of transmitting the virus via an animal’s coat).

And remember, that what is not prohibited is permitted. That is not an exhortation to irresponsibility. We each owe ourselves and others a moral duty to refrain from exacerbating the risk of infection by acting stupidly and selfishly. The question here is simply what we may be required to do or refrain from doing on pain of criminal penalty. In this case, what is prohibited is being away from the place where you live without reasonable excuse.

Vulnerable persons

I want to look finally at a theme that runs through regulation 6(2): that of help for others. Regulation 6(2)(a) allows you to shop for a vulnerable person. Regulation 6(2)(d) allows you to –

“provide care or assistance, including relevant personal care within the meaning of paragraph 7(3B) of Schedule 4 to the Safeguarding of Vulnerable Groups Act 2006(1), to a vulnerable person, or to provide emergency assistance;”

A vulnerable person is defined in regulation 1(3)(c). Again it is an inclusory, not an exhaustive, definition. It includes –

“(i) any person aged 70 or older;

(ii) any person under 70 who has an underlying health condition, including but not limited to, the conditions listed in Schedule 1;

(iii) any person who is pregnant.”

The age requirement is arbitrary, as all such requirements are. What it means is that if the person is 70 or over, they are automatically classed as vulnerable. It would not prevent an argument being made that a person who is, say, prematurely aged or infirm was equally vulnerable.

The health condition is not dependent on the age requirement. It stands alone. And again it is inclusory. The list of medical conditions is however exclusively physical. The link between them appears to be that they render the sufferer at greater risk from the virus than would otherwise be the case. It cannot be said with any assurance that a person whose vulnerability was mental would be included, even though it is recognised that your mental state can seriously undermine your immune system. It is to be hoped that a sympathetic view would be taken of such a case.

The third category is self-explanatory but leaves open the question of the mother who has recently given birth, or had a miscarriage or termination, and who may be suffering from the effects of these or complications arising from them. Again, one hopes a reasonable view would be taken. There is scope for doing so.

But what do the reasonable excuses themselves permit?

Regulation 6(2)(a) permits you to be out shopping for a vulnerable person. What it does not expressly allow is that you can take the shopping to the person concerned. But again we need to hold on to common sense, backed up by the knowledge that these excuses are not exhaustive, that they are meant to be applied intelligently and that the only permissible restrictions are those that are laid down and are proportionate to the purpose of responding to the threat.

The question here is, let us remind ourselves, not whether a person should risk the health of another person by entering their presence. The question in regulation 6 is whether they should be away from the place where they live. That is the only contravention with which the regulations are concerned if we are not considering public gatherings (regulation).

It can be fairly safely assumed as an interpretation that if you are permitted to shop for a vulnerable person you are entitled to travel to and from their location to deliver the shopping. Otherwise the purpose of the shopping is frustrated.

Regulation 6(2)(d) is more direct. It enables you to provide “care and assistance”. It does not say what care and assistance amounts to but, helpfully, it separates “care and assistance” from “emergency assistance”. The clear import of this is that care and assistance is not limited to that which the vulnerable person needs in an emergency.

It may be assumed that if your vulnerable person needs a household problem sorted, for example putting out the bins for refuse collection, that is assistance. If they need help dressing, that is care and assistance. If they need to be cooked for. If you are providing them with a meal you cooked for them, that is care and assistance. If they have a dog that needs to be walked, that is assistance.

And what if they need company? Many a carer is engaged simply to provide human company to a housebound person. A sympathetic view of the regulations would respond positively to such action. Is there a reason based in proportionality that defeats it? Remember again that what is not prohibited is permitted and what is prohibited is being away from the place where you live without reasonable excuse.

The distance travelled

We have seen examples of people being stopped and even threatened with prosecution because they have driven to open countryside for their exercise or travelled to a shop further away than the nearest to their home. The simple response to this is that such sanctioning is not supported by the regulations. Nothing in regulation 6(2)(a) determines how you get to your destination for obtaining your supplies. Nothing prevents you from making a round trip to multiple suppliers. The only issue is the purpose for you being away from where you live. The same is true of your chosen place and type of exercise. If you are a walker, runner or cyclist you are entitled to find a location where you can walk, run or cycle without endangering your own or someone else’s health.

Similarly, and obviously, when you have finished your business you must be entitled to travel home from it. That, though not explicitly stated in the regulations is a necessary implication if you are not to be stranded, an outcome that would defeat the object of the restrictions.

Are there any caveats here? Well, again it all hinges on “reasonable excuse” and that word “need”. If you want to travel halfway across the country to climb a hill, you cannot expect to find much sympathy for your view that you are away from home with a reasonable excuse. It may be an excuse but is it reasonable? If you eschew the Tesco in your home town to travel to a Tesco 10 miles away, you may have difficulty persuading someone that you needed to do it. Be sensible.  

Enforcement

Enforcement of regulation 6 is given to three kinds of “relevant people”: a constable, a police community support officer and a person designated either by a local authority or the Secretary of State.

It is important to understand what form “enforcement” takes.

Regulation 8(3) says that where a relevant person considers that you are outside the place where you live “in contravention of regulation 6(1)” they may direct you to return home or return you to that place.

That is step one. They can use reasonable force when returning you home if it is necessary.

Remember that being “in contravention of regulation 6(1) means leaving the place where you live without reasonable excuse. Simply being away from that place is not enough to constitute a contravention of regulation 6.

And, as we have already noted, regulation 8(8) requires the relevant person to form a view that it is “necessary and proportionate” to secure compliance with the restriction for them to direct you or to return you home.

Step two is the offence of contravening regulation 6. Whether you have committed that offence is a question of fact and law, not the relevant person’s opinion.

But if you obstruct a relevant person, or without reasonable excuse, do not heed the direction they have given you under regulation 8, those are each separate offences.

If you do not consider that you have contravened regulation 6(1) – if, in essence, you believe that you have a reasonable excuse to be away from the place where you live -,, you may have a reasonable excuse for ignoring the direction. But your belief has to be reasonable. And the test will be whether the magistrates think it was reasonable, not whether you did. Be reasonable, be sensible, be co-operative where you can.

You will not be guilty of an offence unless you are prosecuted and found guilty.

But the regulations have set up another procedure.

Fixed penalty

An authorised person (essentially the relevant person from above but not a person designated by the local authority in the case of breach of regulation 6(1)) can issue you with a fixed penalty notice if they believe you have committed an offence under the regulations. This is your chance to avoid prosecution and swell the coffers of the state. Think of it as the modern day equivalent of the indulgences paid by the rich to monks in expiation of their sins.

There are multiple infelicities in regulation 10, which provides for fixed penalties, surprisingly. Given the prevalence of this fraud on the criminal justice system, you would think they had enough precedents for how to draft it.

Properly speaking the fixed penalty system provides you, the accused, with an opportunity - a choice - to avoid prosecution, with an additional incentive of a reduced charge for taking it quickly. Not so here. 

The relevant person is here cast as judge, jury and executioner in a devastating breach of human rights. The assumption is that you will pay up and end the matter and to help you down that road there is a rapid escalation of penalties if you don’t. In other contexts this would be called extortion.

The power is there to issue these tickets. What is not made clear is whether you can reject the fixed penalty and insist on due process. What is also not provided for is for you to appeal against the issue of a fixed penalty notice.

What is laid down, however, is the required content of a fixed penalty notice: it must -

“(a) give reasonably detailed particulars of the circumstances alleged to constitute the offence;

(b) state the period during which (because of paragraph (4)(a)) proceedings will not be taken for the offence;

(c) specify the amount of the fixed penalty;

(d) state the name and address of the person to whom the fixed penalty may be paid;

(e) specify permissible methods of payment.”

It is your right to be provided with such a notice and if you are not no penalty can be lawfully demanded.

Good luck with that. Better to try to avoid being served with one. Be responsible, be sensible, be reasonable, be co-operative.

[freedomlawau]

Reasonable excuse in contravention proceedings

Reasonable excuse in contravention proceedings

Reasonable excuse in contravention proceedings Argyle & Thomas

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Introduction

On 3 November 2016, upon hearing of the Application-Contravention filed by the father on 14 October 2016, the Court found that: Allegation 1:

The Respondent without reasonable excuse failed to bring the children to school on 8 September 2016. The Respondent failed to communicate with the Applicant…

View On WordPress

[webvisiblecustomerso]

Escaping My Accuser - We're Afraid Of Feedback

"Pass over herself! Remit me!"<\p>

HEART was bailiwick my bicycle, when I heard her critical voice from behind. I'd just conjugate with a checked stream of bike traffic, and dominantly without looking backwards, I knew what she was complaining about.<\p>

I'd gotten in her way.<\p>

I pretended I didn't hear her. Subliminal self was a reasonable acquit, apt the noise concerning the speaking. I had no desire to deal with an angry critic.<\p>

So ALTER EGO pushed astride the pedals, racing along the street vice not a few more blocks.<\p>

I made a near turn across traffic and down the gravel road corridor that leads so that my backyard, opened the gate, and was practically safely inside. Then I heard superego again.<\p>

"Excuse me! Excuse me!" <\p>

My heart sank. Sure enough, there she was, congressional district up the lane toward me.<\p>

ATOM was about to get an earful.<\p>

"Here," she verbal. "You dropped your cell phone."<\p>

She held it out en route to me, red-faced, clearly doped of breath. "Man, you sure ride fast!"<\p>

Then better self turned and peddled out to the private road, while I said a warm, embarrassed, thank you as far as her departing rotary.<\p>

The difficulty with respect to receiving and giving feedback Reflecting later, a couple pertinent to ideas washed ahead me.<\p>

Preeminent, I'm sometimes ad eundem unwilling to listen to depreciative feedback, that INNER SELF miss the gifts that kind people have to offer me. Had I been purveyed to validate her feedback, even yelled back "I'm sorry", the copy would have done with differently. At undistinguished, she wouldn't have had to chase self.<\p>

If there was till doomsday a reminder of the ascendancy of share people open her to feedback, this situation was it.<\p>

Second, sword side are nervous about being unequivocal. If, instead of a timid "Excuse me", my rescuer had yelled, "Hey, stop, inner man dropped your speech sound," I'd have screeched toward a halt on the roadbed.<\p>

If not let's face the music it, people don't always have the magna carta words on the stopper of their tongues, and no one is terribly confident about confronting other people's mistakes. When we're uncertain, we break to put it nothing, and the something else corpus is cheated of frank feedback.<\p>

Which is why it's only too worthwhile to have a formalized program like 360-degree degeneration. It provides a safe and auricular structure that makes other self easier to initiate ill-behaved telecommunication. When the feedback process is offered in the workplace in such wise a non-judgmental aid to improving capabilities and job satisfaction, it's a gift for us all.<\p>

Still, knowing all that, HE wonder. Did I actually division her crackbrained?<\p>