A financial penalty paid to the state, following conviction by a court for a criminal offence. Limits are normally set on the levels of fines inferior courts are permitted to levy, and the offender's means are generally taken into account. The court may allow time for payment or payment by instalments. Failure to pay a fine without good cause can lead to imprisonment for default. Fines are the most common form of punishment, and may be imposed in conjunction with some other penalty, such as compensation orders. Fines are often imposed upon companies which are in breach of their statutory obligations. The Swedish system of day-fines, first introduced in 1931, which attempts to take account of the offender's financial situation, has been adopted to a limited extent in a number of countries, including Germany, and in England and Wales through its unit fines system.
Criminal Law
A fine is money paid as a financial punishment for the commission of minor crimes or as the settlement of a claim.
Common examples of fines is money paid for violations of traffic laws. Currently in English Common Law relatively small fines are used either in place of or alongside community service orders for low-level criminal offences. For instance, fraud is often punished by very large fines since fraudsters are typically debarred from the position or profession they abused to commit their crimes.
Fines can also be used as a form of tax.
A day-fine is a fine that, above a minimum, is based on personal income.
Early examples of fines include the Weregild or blood money payable under Anglo-Saxon common law for causing a death.
Fines in English land transactions
A fine on alienation, in feudal law, was a sum of money paid to the lord by a tenant when he had occasion to make over his land to another. The term fine is also a synonum for a premium, a sum paid to the landlord at the start of a lease or for the extension of the term of an exisitng lease (for example, to add an additioanal life to the term of a lease for lives).
A fine of lands (sometimes called a final concord) was a species of conveyance (abolished in England in 1833). The court provided each party with a copy 'chirograph' of the fine and kept a third copy (known as a foot of fine).
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