Quote:
Originally Posted by mookiemookie
It doesn't really work to put the fire out and collect the fee then, because then everyone would stop paying knowing that they could pay only if they actually used the service.
|
^This.
It also would mean to accept that the community, all people paying for such services, would need to accept that they additonally come up for the costs of maintaing the administrative structures and court proceedings to force somebody to pay afterwards.
I am reminded of two things in this context. First, that courts are totally overburdened and deadlocked with bagatelle cases becasue every bagatelle today, every little sucker thinking he must file a case against this ticket here, that minor offence penalty there, anmd then go to the next instance, and the next higher court, and many just do that becasue they eiother do not accept certain laws to be valid for them as well, or because they simply have the right and opportunity to do so even when they are guilty.
Second, it reminds me of what in German we call "Mietnomaden", people who rent a flat, but never pay asingle cent and have all protection and rights by the law, causing immense stress and loss of income and damage to the house owner. Such disputes see all advantages on side of the nomads, with the owner of the house needing to follow a dozen different waiting periods, and having to pay additonally for all services the court allows in order to keep formalities. The mean time of conflict in such cases is 15-18 months, and the average damage that has to be payed by the house owner all by himself, is around 25-28 thousand Euros. Much longer proceedings and higher damages are possible and not rare.
The German article IU read said that the guy did not forget but refused to pay even after beign asked several times. That would mean he did not forget it, but he
resisted to it. And maybe that is the reason why the fire departement was so pissed.