The Madrid City Council will return 1.7 million of the fines for breaching the first state of alarm

A woman in Madrid during the state of alarm. the sanctioning procedures for the state of alarm declared on March 14 The amount of these fines, for prompt payment, has been announced by the delegate of the Security and Emergencies area, Inmaculada Sanz The Madrid City Council will return the 1.7 million euros collected for the fines imposed by the Municipal Police on Madrid residents who failed to comply with the restrictions imposed during the first state of alarm. This is how it appears in the Official Gazette of the City Council (BOAM), where the resolutions and decrees issued in the sanctioning procedures initiated for non-compliance are revoked of the restrictions imposed during the state of alarm declared on March 14. The amount of these fines , for prompt payment, has been announced by the delegate of the Security and Emergencies area, Inmaculada Sanz, after attending the conference ‘The prevention of unwanted loneliness in the city of Madrid’. The income is also declared “undue” obtained by the imposed sanctions and the processing for their return is ordered “with the appropriate legal interest”. The BOAM states that “all these acts” are “unfavorable for the interested parties, whose revocation is not contrary to equity, to good faith, to the right of individuals or to the laws, without the prescribed limitation periods having elapsed”. The delegate for Security and Emergencies, Inmaculada Sanz, explained that this decision to do so ex officio was taken after a report from the Municipal Legal Services on the effects of the illegality of the state of alarm. The objective is “to maintain legal certainty” and to operate “as agilely” as possible for citizens. “Many efforts were made by the Municipal Police during the state of alarm, but due to the legal insecurity that was we understand that doing it ex officio is the best way”, he indicated after participating in a conference on unwanted loneliness. He hopes that the start of the returns “will not take long”, they will start “when the procedures allow it”, and he added that the vast majority of the fines were for early payment –which are the ones that are going to be paid now– and he recalled that some of these sanctions “are judicialized” and that for them “we will have to wait.”