Government Grants ZRP Permission To Charge Fines Up To ZWL $120k

The government has given police and magistrates’ courts the green light to impose fines of between $200 and $120 000 for various criminal offences.

The new fines schedule was published in the Government Gazette on Friday and comes into effect immediately.

Admission of guilt fine for levels one to three offences has been hiked to $200 from $20.

Levels 4 to 14 offences now attract between $1 500 and $120 000. The maximum charge used to be $10 000.

Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister Ziyambi Ziyambi gazetted the new standard scale of fines under Statutory Instrument (SI) 57 of 2020. He said:

This notice may be cited as the Criminal Law Codification and Reform (Standard Scale of Fines) Notice, 2020. The First Schedule to the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act is repealed and the following is substituted “First Schedule (Sections 2(1) and 280) Standard Scale of Fines.

The officer in charge will determine what the accused will pay for level one to level three and the fine will range between $200 and $500.

Some of the crimes under this level include driving without due care, public drinking and/or public fighting.