LIT3 - Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, E. & Faure, M. (2020). Comparative Law and Economics Perspective on Day Fines. (pp. 366-388). Cambridge University Press

Question 1

What are day fines?

Answer 1

Day fines, also known as unit fines or structured fines, are a type of legal fine that is based on the offender’s daily personal income. The idea is to make the punishment financially equivalent to incarceration for one day without salary. This way, the impact of the fine is scaled to be equal for both high- and low-income offenders

Question 2

What are the most used rationales for day fines?

Answer 2

1. The necessity to have an
   equal burden of the fines on the rich and the poor
2. Reducing the number of fine defaulters. Directly reducing short-term prison sentences
3. Deterrence

Question 3

What are the most important reasons to introduce a day fine system?

Answer 3

1. Distributional justice (proportionality of the fine)
2. The reduction of (especially short-term) imprisonment

Question 4

Why are day fines not fully utilized in all countries?

Answer 4

In those countries where day fines are underused, it is often due either to a negative public perception or to the reluctance of the judiciary to apply the day fine system
(often because they do not want to engage in a detailed research concerning the
precise income) as a result of which they impose relatively low fines, leading in turn to the perception of weak deterrence of day fines.

Question 5

What is the public and judicial perception of the day fine system?

Answer 5

In particular, the public might reject this model due to the potentially high amounts of fines in the rare cases where particularly wealthy offenders commit minor crimes.

Judges on the other hand, may reject this fine system also due to the
increased effort it requires from them in the form of collecting financial information and calculating the daily unit.

Question 6

What is a Legal Transplant and its dangers?

Answer 6

A mechanism whereby a host country receives a particular legal rule or instrument that is transplanted from a previous experience in a donor country

If the institutional framework in the host country is different from that in the donor country from which the transplanted legal rule originates,
there is a danger of a rejection of the transplant.

Question 7

What are the two main reasons of the failure of the day fine system?

Answer 7

1. The problem of
   negative perception of the fine by the public.
2. The
   complexity of the system due to its dependence on financial information of
   the offender.

Question 8

What are possibilities to increase day fine usage?

Answer 8

• Open the possibility to allow the application of the day fine system for all offences.
• Apply day fines to administrative offences as well.
• Permit applying day fines by other sentencers, such as prosecutors.
• Apply the day fine also to legal entities.
• Make community service (or other sanctions such as house arrest) the
• alternative in case of default on the day fine.