Higher fines for public order offences

The Court of the Faroe Islands this week ruled twice in favour of the prosecution’s view that higher fines should be imposed for public order offences.

In these two cases, the fines were raised from the previous amounts of DKK 600-800 to DKK 1,500-3,000.

The Faroese Public Order Act came into force on 1 January 2021, replacing general Danish police regulations.

Fines unchanged for two decades

However, the size of fines for public order offences were not updated at the time and have remained unchanged since the turn of the century.

This has led to repeated calls from the Faroese police for higher fines as the existing fines had little to no deterrent effect.

Tuesday’s court rulings are believed to have set a precedent for increasing the average fine for public order offences from DKK 600-800 to DKK 1,500-3,000.

Read the Faroese version of this article here.

More Faroese News in English.