No fine for those who park in the blue stripes beyond hours for which they paid. This was reiterated by the Court of Treviso in its ruling No. 1069 of 4/21/2016 (d.ssa Daniela Ronzani).

The court thus fully accepted the argument of those who have always argued that there are no rules that punish with a fine those who leave their cars parked in paid areas exceeding the time for which they paid, as the law only punishes irregular parking in limited or regulated parking zones.

The case originated on 01.07.2013, when an accountant from Castelfranco Veneto, after having regularly parked his car within the parking spaces delimited by the blue lines in the historic center and having paid the ticket, had extended his parking beyond the time for which he had paid.

After a few days, he had been issued a fine by the municipal police organs, who contested the violation of Article 157, paragraphs 6 and 8 of the Highway Code on the basis of the report drawn up by a parking auxiliary, an employee of the parking management company identified by the municipality, in accordance with Article 17, paragraph 132 L. 127/97.

Believing that he had been the victim of injustice, he had appealed, on his own behalf, to the Justice of the Peace who, however, had hastily dismissed the accountant's grievances, rejecting the appeal.

At that point, the plaintiff turned to me, and I appealed the ruling, arguing that there are no regulations that penalize those who purchase parking tickets but extend parking beyond the time for which they paid. In such cases, the municipality can only demand payment of a penalty commensurate with the prolongation of parking beyond the stipulated time.

The point, in summary, is this.

In our legal system, the imposition of administrative penalties, similarly to criminal penalties, is governed by the principle of legality. According to this principle, "no one may be subjected to administrative sanctions except under a law that came into force before the violation was committed. Laws that provide for administrative sanctions shall be applied only in the cases and for the times considered therein."

In order to impose an administrative sanction, the law thus establishes three fixed points:
(a) the need for the sanctioned conduct to be provided for by law. Analogical application, i.e., the application of the law to cases that are similar, but not exactly referable to what the law provides for, is prohibited.
(b) The rule must predate the commission of the act;
(c) The rule cannot be retroactive, that is, dictate a sanction for facts that occurred in the past.

The Highway Code, i.e., Legislative Decree No. 285/92, establishes a set of rules related to the parking and parking of vehicles. These are rules designed with respect to situations and devices that are affected by the historical and technical context of the time. This gives rise to quite a few difficulties in application.

At the time of the enactment of the Highway Code, parking was restricted by the imposition of a time disk. When, in addition to compliance with the parking limit, a fee was also imposed, the parking control tool used was the parking meter, i.e., a device installed in each individual parking lot that measured parking by means of a timer to be set in operation upon payment.

Administrations then, faced with non-payment of parking, applied Article 157, paragraphs 6 and 8, which state: "In places where parking is permitted for a limited time, drivers are obliged to signal, in a clearly visible manner, the time at which parking began. Where the parking duration control device exists, it is obligatory to put it into operation."

With the increase in paid parking recorded in the second half of the 1990s, public administrations began to require payment even in areas where parking was no longer restricted, but allowed without time limits. Areas, where motorists could park without limit, as long as they paid.

The parking meter was replaced by the "scratchcard," first, and then by the parking meter (that little column that, based on the coin introduced, prints a ticket indicating the end of the stop).

Compared to this collection system, the rule appears to be impossible to enforce.

First of all, in blue-striped areas, as a rule, parking is without time limit and therefore Article 157 CdS does not apply.

Second, even considering the parking meter as a "control device," a circumstance about which several doubts have been raised by commentators, Art. 157(6) requires the device to be activated at the time of parking. On the other hand, it does not punish the conduct of those who, after activating the device (paid and displaying the ticket) extend parking beyond the time for which they paid.

Instead, such conduct is punished by Article 7 paragraph 15 of the CdS which in fact provides that "In cases of prohibited parking (...) the administrative fine is (...). If it is limited or regulated parking, the administrative penalty is the payment of a sum from 25 to 100 euros and the penalty itself is applied for each period for which the violation continues."

In short, when parking is limited and subject to payment, failure to display the ticket to start parking violates Article 157, paragraph 6; prolonging parking beyond the time for which one has paid, on the other hand, violates Article 7, paragraph 15, CdS.

Both regulations say nothing when parking is not restricted, but free, albeit subject to payment.

Both the Ministry of Transport (Opinion prot. 25783 of 22.3.10, Opinion prot. 1790 de 11.1.10) and the Ministry of the Interior (Note prot. 74779 of 30.7. 2007) following specific questions, which, taking note of the regulatory framework, affirmed that in the case of parking areas where parking is priced and allowed for an indefinite period of time, the continuation of parking beyond the period for which payment has been made does not constitute any violation of the obligations imposed by the Highway Code, since it is instead a mere breach of contract for which public administrations may provide for the payment of expenses and penalties pursuant to Article 17, paragraph 132 of Law No. 127/97.

Obviously, the ministries' opinion was not particularly welcomed by municipalities who saw an almost certain and continuous source of revenue faltering.

Therefore, it was argued by some quarters that, in the case of unrestricted parking, prolonged parking, should be sanctioned under Art. 7, para. 14 of the CdS, which is a general rule and requires separate specific provision for prohibited conduct.

To complicate the situation, first the Court of Cassation intervened, with rulings Nos. 22036/08 and 30/12, and then even the Lazio Court of Auditors, with ruling No. 888 of Sept. 19.9.12. According to the Cassation, the mere imposition of the obligation to pay constituted a "limitation" of parking with consequent application of Art. 157 and 7 paragraph 15 CdS. The administrative judge even condemned a concessionaire company for fiscal damage because it had allowed violators, within 24 hours of the assessment, to regularize the non-payment of the parking ticket without proceeding to contest the traffic violation.

The reasons for the judgments, however, did not seem inapposite, particularly with regard to compliance with the principle of legality, so much so that the Ministry of Transport, maintained its position, reiterating that the extension of parking beyond the time for which payment was made integrates a violation of a civil nature (cf. Opinion prot. 370 of 15.1.13 and Opinion prot. 53284 of 12.5.2015).

In particular, the Ministry reiterated that Art. 7 paragraph 15 of the Cds refers only to cases of limited or regulated parking, where limited parking is to be understood as that allowed for a limited time (see Art. 157 paragraph 6 of the Cds), while regulated parking is to be understood as that subject to specific regulations adopted to correspond to “justified traffic regulation needs” .

According to the same Ministry, Art. 7 paragraph 14, on the other hand, also due to its broad and indefinite wording, must necessarily be read in relation to Art. 157 paragraph 6 in the sense that the violation “can only refer to the failure to indicate the beginning of the stop, or to the failure to operate the device controlling the duration of the stop.”

Consequently, where parking is allowed indefinitely and subject to payment of a sum, underpayment only constitutes a breach of contract.

In the face of such a jagged and uncertain landscape, with a clear and courageous ruling, the Court of Treviso, on appeal, gave preference to the Ministry's arguments and, while called upon to judge on the application of Article 157, fully accepted the Ministry's arguments also with regard to Article 7 of the CdS, closing the door to any interpretation of the law that was not strict and literal.

A solution that appears not only formally correct, but also fair and respectful of general principles, given that the Public Administration has numerous tools at its disposal that place it in a privileged position vis-à-vis citizens and allow it to recover its debts without having to resort to the surreptitious application of administrative fines, which by their nature have a different function.

Fines cannot be another form of indirect taxation of the citizen, nor an alternative form of debt collection.