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Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

Quick lookup for English, Urdu, and Latin legal terms used in Pakistani jurisprudence.

Excessive Fines Clause

The clause of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting the imposition of excessive fines.

excessive fine

1. Criminal law. A fine that is unreasonably high and disproportionate to the offense committed. ( The Eighth Amendment proscribes excessive fines. An example of an excessive fine is a civil forfeiture in which the property was not an instrumentality of the crime and the worth of the property was not proportional to the owner's culpability. 2. A fine or penalty that seriously impairs one's earning capacity, esp. from a business. fresh fine. Hist. A fine levied within the past year.