public if the whole charade were not quite so pathetic. There was a muddle over getting illegal parkers to court within the required time so the magistrate dismissed the tickets. It seems to us that should have been the end of the matter. We have little sympathy for illegal parkers but sometimes the public gets a break from the law. After all, parking is not exactly corruption or physical violence.

The Senate was told on Monday that there were procedural problems with the processing of parking fines and staffing difficulties which meant the system had backfired thus delaying hundreds of parking cases. That really means that the lower courts could not cope with the large number of parking offenders within the time set by law. The system needed fixing. But instead of fixing the system Government in its wisdom decided to change the law and make the illegal parkers pay their penalties after all. That's hardly cricket.

As Opposition Senate Leader Milton Scott quite rightly told the Senate: "I don't see how dismissed charges can come up again if it is dismissed. It is a most unfortunate piece of legislation.'' It seems to us that it would have been much more democratic to face the fact that retroactive laws are seldom good law. People are not bound to be happy to have the law changed to make them guilty for something which they were not fined for because of Government inefficiency.

We agree that there is far too much illegal parking and that there is a need to stop the violations in Hamilton. Yet the people who received these tickets are not responsible for the inefficiency in the courts. Most of them would have paid their fines but they were not required by the magistrate to do so.

Now they are required by a new law to do so. As Sen. Milton Scott told the Senate: "It is draconian''..."it should be in the garbage can''.

It is probably not in the garbage can because money reared its ugly head. The UBP's Senator Larry Scott said the Act closed a legal loophole and would mean that some $300,000 would soon be heading Government's way. Then UBP Sen.

Yvette Swan said there could be as much at $1 million outstanding and the Act was a very important piece of law. Three hundred thousand or a million, who knows, but that's why we have retroactive legislation, to get hold of the cash. Perhaps some of it should be used to sort out the inefficiency that led to this charade.

Maybe some brave soul will go to court, plead not guilty and challenge this law. Perhaps everyone with those parking tickets should do so and that would tie up the lower courts for about three years. We think opposing a retroactive law is worth it.