The Colorado Department of Revenue violated state law by revoking honorary consular license plates from diplomats and reprogramming the agency’s computers to show the plates as legally invalid before state code had been changed, a new lawsuit alleges.
The department’s Division of Motor Vehicles repealed the 65-year-old program in April 2022 after the U.S. State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions published a recommendation that states eliminate such plates in an attempt to curb fraud, the lawsuit said. But consular plates were still included in the division’s code of regulations until an update at the end of last month.
The Colorado-based honorary consuls of Switzerland, Iceland, Hungary and Slovakia filed the lawsuit Friday in Denver District Court.
“There are no facts and nothing to suggest any (fraud) problems in Colorado,” said Gregory Fasing, the attorney who filed the lawsuit and the honorary consul for Slovakia, in an interview Tuesday. “Colorado has a highly professional consular corps… there are no issues with fraud or abuse. None have ever been alleged to have occurred in Colorado.”
A representative of the Colorado Department of Revenue declined to comment on the lawsuit for this story.
The Division of Motor Vehicles’ updated rule removed all provisions relating to vehicles owned by foreign governments or their representatives, now rendering such vehicles ineligible for any specialty consular plates in Colorado.
The division had issued honorary consulate plates since 1957 for official representatives or consuls of a foreign government recognized by the U.S. State Department, the lawsuit said.
Consuls registered in Colorado did not have to pay annual registration fees or taxes to receive the plates.
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Additionally, vehicles bearing honorary consulate license plates gained similar permissions to those with other U.S. or foreign government plates, including free parking and bypassing civilian security checkpoints, Fasing said.
There were 33 honorary consul license plates registered in Colorado, according to data published by the division in December. There are no listed plates registered for other foreign ambassadors or representatives.
“(These plates) show that Colorado as a state government values international relationships with people all over the world because they show on a license plate that they have an honorary consul recognized in Colorado,” Fasing said. “These plates, although it is just some paint on aluminum, are significant.”
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