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What
is internal review?
For infringement notices that do not
impose any licence loss, it is possible to
write to the enforcement agency (usually
the police or the local council) to seek a
review of the infringement notice in the
hope that the agency will withdraw the
infringement notice and issue a warning
instead.
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Who
can apply for internal review?
S.22
Infringements Act sets out the
eligibility requirements for internal
review. You will probably not get a
favourable review unless you come within
the s.22 criteria. For police
matters, you can apply for internal review
if
you qualify for a warning under the
police published criteria. For
parking fines, you might get a good
review if you have a really good excuse
or a valid defence. You must not apply
for review of an infringement notice
that imposes a mandatory licence
suspension or licence disqualification
period. For those types of
infringements, you must object
to the infringement notice if you want
to save your licence.
You
qualify for internal review if:
- You
have a 1 point speeding infringement
notice and have not had any traffic
infringements in the previous 2 years,
or
- You
have incurred multiple one point
speeding tickets from Freeway or
Tollway fixed speed cameras within a
period of up to 4 weeks, or
- You
were homeless, mentally ill, or drug
addicted (the
"special circumstances" criteria).
Special circumstances works best for
parking fines and tollway offences.
- The
police have made a mistake in identity
and you can show you are not the
person who committed the offence (not
available for camera offences).
- You
have an immensely fantastic excuse for
committing the
offence - such as a
life or death emergency - which
you are sure the police will accept,
even though the officer who pulled you
over decided not to give you a warning
when he issued the ticket to you.
You
do not qualify for an internal review
just because:
- you
believe you did not commit an offence
- even if you have evidence to
back you up, or
- the
penalty will cause you problems, or
- the
infringement notice causes licence
loss, or
- you
think any aspect of it is unfair,
unreasonable or excessive.
If
you do qualify for a warning and you are
also thinking of going to court, then
you might want to get legal advice about
what to write in your letter to ensure
your letter is not detrimental to your
court case.
If
you do not qualify for internal review,
there is no point seeking internal
review. However,
hundreds of people each week make
applications which are destined to fail.
Click
here to see the rejection letter
the police will send you if you do not
qualify for internal review.
If
you are certain you will never take the
matter to court you have nothing to lose
by seeking internal review - but get
ready to pay the fine once your review
is rejected. Some
people wish to fight their case in
court, but they try internal review
first to see if that solves the problem.
It won't. It just makes it worse because
now all the admissions you made in your
letter will be used against you in court
and the police will be more prepared to
rebut your arguments.
You can not seek review just because you
want to avoid demerit points or avoid
licence loss. There is no hardship test.
If you are ineligible for review, your sob
story will not make you eligible.
Any letter you write to the police
imposes a significant risk of adversely
affecting your court case, so you are
usually better off not writing at all if
you are thinking of going to court. Some
of my clients ruin their court cases
because they earlier wrote letters to the
police. It is rare for a client to
write a useful letter. One of the
few rights you have is to remain silent,
so you might want to exercise it.
Victoria Police Internal Review
Fines
Victoria receives applications for
internal review of police issued
infringement notices. Although the
police can withdraw an infringement
notice if exceptional
circumstances apply to the person or
to the circumstances of the offence it
is extremely rare for them to do
so. Police policy allows them to
withdraw
certain speeding fines, but
other types of offences generally will
not be withdrawn. If
you later decide to
take the matter to
court, your letter
will become evidence
against you. The
only time it is useful to seek internal
review is if you meet the police published
criteria for a withdrawal.
Police
will not withdraw infringement
notices that fall outside the
eligibility criteria. In an
internal review, they will check
notices to ensure they have been
correctly completed. If a notice
has any errors (i.e. wrong date,
wrong penalty, misspelling etc)
they will withdraw the
notice and issue you
with a corrected
infringement notice.
For
parking fines, it is
reasonable to seek internal review
especially if you do not intend to employ
a lawyer to fight your case in court. If
you intend to engage a lawyer, he/she
might be disappointed to find that you
have written a letter seeking internal
review - it could damage your
case. Internal reviews by councils
have a much better success rate than
internal reviews sent to the police. If
you intend to defend the parking fine in
court yourself, or you do not intend
to take it to court, then there is no harm
in writing a letter seeking internal
review. Even though many parking reviews
result in a warning, do not be surprised
if your application for review achieves
nothing.
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How
to seek internal review
For police issued infringements, you will
improve your chances of getting a warning if
you:
• admit you committed the offence alleged,
• explain which aspect of the published
criteria qualifies you for a warning or
withdrawal.
•
offer a special or exceptional excuse or
explanation,
• sound remorseful.
If you deny committing an offence you
will achieve nothing at all and you will
be invited to fight the case in court.
If you moan about losing your licence,
they will just smile at the effectiveness
of their road safety program.
Complaining about the usefulness of
cameras, questioning their accuracy or
making political statements about revenue
raising will reduce your chances of
getting a warning.
Complaining that the police acted
unlawfully will achieve absolutely
nothing.
Making a complaint about police conduct
before the end of your court case is very
unhelpful - so don't do it. Prepare the
complaint now and lodge it after your case
ends.
If
you disagree with anything the police
are alleging you will be invited to
argue about that in court.
If
you claim there is a mistake in your
ticket, they might send you a new
ticket.
If
you think you have been issued a ticket
for the wrong offence, you can ask them
to issue a new ticket for the correct
offence.
If
you later decide to take the case to
court, any letter you write will be used
against you in court.
You
can write your letter to Civic
Compliance, or to the relevant
enforcement agency directly (i.e. you
can write directly to the person or
agency that issued the fine), or you can
apply for internal review online
with Fines Victoria.
For
police matters, you can also send your
review application to:
Officer
in Charge
Traffic Camera Office
GPO Box 1916
Melbourne 3001
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Consequences
of Seeking Internal Review
There are four possible outcomes to an
internal review:
• infringement
notice confirmed,
• infringement notice withdrawn and a new
notice issued,
• infringement notice withdrawn with or
without a warning,
• infringement notice withdrawn and a
charge and summons served.
When the infringement notice is
confirmed, you are usually given extra
time to pay the fine. If you are seeking
internal review, there is no value in
offering to pay the fine. If you are happy
to pay a fine, then just pay it. Your goal
at internal review is to have the
infringement notice withdrawn in which
case no fine will be payable.
It is impossible to get internal review of
an infringement notice that imposes
mandatory licence loss such as a drink
driving infringement or an excessive speed
infringement notice.
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Related
Pages
Police
Guidelines for Internal Review
Review
of Multiple Speed Camera
Infringements
Work
licences and Daytime Licences
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