Tough powers designed to claw back millions in unpaid fines and fees owed to the territory's courts have not been used once since they were introduced more than 20 months ago.
The ACT was owed roughly $3.3 million in unpaid court-imposed fines and fees in early 2010.
To try and retrieve the money from offenders, the ACT Government enacted substantial new powers in July 2010, allowing the courts to seize wages, order community work and sell off the assets of those unable or unwilling to pay off their fines.
But The Canberra Times can reveal that those new enforcement provisions have not been used once since they were brought in.
Additionally, the courts have only managed to reduce the total pool of unpaid money by a relatively minuscule amount since the new laws came in. The overall debt owed to the court system was reduced by about $48,000 in the 12 months after the new powers were enacted, and $3.3million in fines and fees were still unpaid by last July.
Shadow Attorney-General Vicki Dunne said the failure to use the substantial new powers undermined the integrity of the court system, and gave offenders the impression they could ignore fines without fear of repercussion.
''This is a real problem, because it means that court-imposed fines aren't worth very much if there is no follow-up to ensure that people pay their fines, it's not a punishment if people don't pay their fines,'' she said.
''This system was designed to address that backlog and ensure that we didn't get into that situation again, and this is disgraceful if they haven't actually used the system.''
The tough new enforcement provisions are considered as measures of last resort, and will be only be used after a suite of other measures, including written warnings and financial assessments, have been exhausted.
ACT Magistrates Court registrar Hugh Jorgensen said it was not overly concerning that the tools had remained unused, and said the lack of progress in reducing the overall pool of debt should not be used to measure their effectiveness.
''It will take some time for us to get into the bulk of the debt,'' he said. ''I don't think it's of concern in the sense that you will always have an amount of debt that's outstanding at any given point in time, bearing in mind that fines are continuously being imposed, so that amount will always fluctuate.''
The highest individual amount owed to the court was $126,000, according to a Justice and Community Safety spokeswoman.
Larger amounts of debt typically involved fines to companies after workplace safety prosecutions.
Other large amounts of unpaid fines were held by two individuals whose bail had been forfeited and warrants were outstanding, one involving an unlodged tax return, and two with a collection of ''extensive'' traffic fines.
Ms Dunne said that the government may need to ''rethink the system'' if the courts were still struggling to retrieve their debts.
''You need to start using these powers because people will just get the message that a court-imposed fine isn't a real sanction,'' she said.
The courts can jail debtors as an absolute last resort to recovering fines.
Inmates can serve out their fines at a rate of $300 per day for adults and $500 per day for young offenders. Community work can also be used to pay off fines at a rate of $37.50 per hour.
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