The fact that municipalities contract out speed camera services to private companies is no reason to ask for the cancellation of the fines of drivers sanctioned for speeding.

This was underlined by the Supreme Court, rejecting the appeal of Patrizia M., a Sardinian citizen, and confirming the validity of a fine issued by the municipality of Arborea, which pays the private rental company a consideration of 29% of the proceeds of the penalties .

The sentence was filed today by the Second Civil Section. Patrizia M., defended by Rossella Oppo of the Oristano bar, had appealed against a fine for speeding, detected in June 2008 by the Traffiphot speed camera.

In the complaint, the woman claimed that the violation "had not been ascertained by the municipal police agents, but by employees of a private company involved in the proceeds of the sanctions ", as "paid with a variable consideration of 29.10%".

The fact of paying a percentage of the proceeds would therefore have "transformed the contract into a random contract as the consideration would have been conditioned by an 'event', the assessment of the sanction, and not by a service actually performed, with consequent indeterminacy of the object ". Furthermore, the fact that the supplier company "also provided for the calibration of the devices would also have led to a serious conflict of interest ".

The stoats, however, gave her wrong and confirmed the validity of the fine, the Justice of the Peace of Terralba had canceled the report.

For the Supreme Court, "the remuneration of the service in relation to the proceeds of administrative sanctions is not relevant since the violations must be ascertained by the Municipal Police, nor is there any profile of invalidity of the report connected to the restriction on the allocation of the proceeds ".

All the data collected by the rental speed cameras, in fact, flowed into a server "in order to be validated by the local police staff , who could therefore access the data with direct and full availability in order to examine and verify them to contest the sanctions".

Thus, in addition to the fine for speeding, Patrizia M. also has to pay a thousand euros of legal fees in favor of the municipality of Arborea.

(Unioneonline / L)

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