Recently, the administrative fines of motorcycle and moped drivers have started on a massive scale. In this regard, social networks and local information resources contained news regarding the dissatisfaction of drivers.
Tribunat made a legal analysis of the causes of the problem and the legality of the fine.
On December 16, 2022, the Law on Traffic was amended. According to the amendment, the word "or" was added after the words "and more" in Article 27, Part II, Paragraph 1 of the said Law, and the words "as well as color" were added after the word "numbers" in Article 27, Part IV, Paragraph 4 and Part XIV.
This Law was published on December 16, 2022, and it is stated that it will enter into force 6 months after its publication. The President signed a decree on the implementation of the amendments on February 1, 2023.
But what do these amendments and the implementation of the amendments mean?
After the aforementioned amendment to the Law on Traffic, " all types, brands, and models of mechanical vehicles, their trailers and semi-trailers, owned by legal entities and natural persons (except for the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan and other units) and the engine of which has an operation volume of 50 cubic centimeters or more or has a constructive maximum speed of more than 50 kilometers per hour, are subject to state registration.
According to Decree No. 24 dated November 22, 1998, on the implementation of the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Traffic and the Regulations on the state registration of mechanical vehicles and their trailers in the prescribed manner and accounting for state registration, approved by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers dated March 15, 1999, No. 39, these above-mentioned vehicles are registered in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
In the previous text of Article 27, Part II, Paragraph 1 of the Law, the simultaneous presence of 2 conditions (the working volume of the engine is 50 cubic centimeters or more and the constructive maximum speed of more than 50 kilometers per hour) required for state registration of a vehicle was envisaged. After the amendment to that paragraph on December 16, 2022, if one of these two conditions exists, the vehicle must be state-registered.
Administrative fines are envisaged for violations related to the registration of vehicles.
Those fines are regulated by Article 339 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Republic of Azerbaijan. According to Paragraph 1 of the mentioned article, for driving a vehicle without state registration by the owners or drivers of vehicles in the manner and within the time prescribed by law - individuals are fined in the amount of fifty manats, officials in the amount of one hundred manats, and legal entities in the amount of three hundred manats.
Failure to comply with the new requirement of the law regarding the state registration of the vehicle may lead to an administrative fine under the mentioned paragraph of Article 339 of the CAO.
In the Law on Traffic, the word "motorcycle" means "a two-wheeled mechanical vehicle with an engine, with a carriage or without a carriage (tricycles and light quadricycles are considered equal to motorcycles), and the word “moped” means "a two-wheeled or three-wheeled vehicle propelled by an engine with an operation volume of no more than 50 cubic centimeters and a constructive maximum speed of no more than 50 kilometers per hour (motorized bicycles and other vehicles with similar characteristics are considered equal to mopeds)".
Moped and motorcycle drivers protesting massive fines point to the fact that the problem with registration stems from the shops where they bought the mentioned vehicles and that they could not obtain the customs declaration from the shops.
According to the Customs Code, a customs declaration is a document that shows that the goods and means of transport have been declared to the customs. According to the Code, the declaration can be made verbally, in written forms on paper, or by other methods that create conditions for placing the relevant goods under the customs procedure in the cases provided for by the legislation.
According to the Regulations on the state registration of mechanical vehicles and their trailers in the prescribed manner and accounting for state registration, "for state registration of the vehicle and other registration actions, the owner of the vehicle or another person who has the right to dispose of the vehicle must submit to the bodies conducting the state registration of vehicles the permission document issued by the customs authorities for the vehicle purchased from foreign countries and brought to the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan by legal entities and individuals, the document that the vehicle has been removed from the permanent registration of the state in which it was previously registered, and its registration or transit marks."
According to the other paragraph of the Regulations, new vehicles brought to the republic for sale by enterprises, organizations, and firms with the status of a legal entity, specialized in the purchase and sale of vehicles and registered with the State Traffic Police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, are registered in the name of the legal entities and natural persons who bought them, on the basis of the customs documents, sales contract, transit marks, and other relevant documents for bringing these vehicles to the republic.
Article 482 of the Customs Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan provides for an administrative fine in cases of non-declaration or incorrect declaration of goods.
However, the protesting drivers say that the shops selling the vehicles in question violated the norms of the Customs Code related to the declaration of products and brought those vehicles into the country, and therefore the shops avoid submitting the customs declaration to the buyers.
It is impossible to determine how many mopeds and motorcycles are currently in Azerbaijan. However, according to official statistics, in the first 5 months of 2023, 512 mopeds with an engine volume of no more than 50 cubic centimeters, and 794 motorcycles with an engine volume of 50 cubic centimeters and more were brought to the country. The same indicator was recorded as 3,369 mopeds and 1,934 motorcycles with an engine volume of 50 cubic centimeters or more in 2022.
Thus, Tribunat concludes that administrative fines arise from the requirement of the current text (after the amendment of December 16, 2022) of Article 27, Part 2, Paragraph 1 of the Law on Traffic.
On the other hand, according to the Regulations on the state registration of mechanical vehicles and their trailers in the prescribed manner and accounting for state registration, "for state registration of the vehicle ... the owner of the vehicle or another person who has the right to dispose of the vehicle must submit to the bodies conducting the state registration of vehicles the permission document issued by the customs authorities ..."
