Collecting fines nowadays

[א] (halacha 8)

Question: Do we collect fines nowadays, such as a thief who stole — is he obligated to pay double?

Answer: In Parshas Mishpatim the Torah wrote that one who steals an object from his fellow must pay double the value of the theft as a fine, except for one who steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters or sells the stolen animal before he is caught, who pays fourfold for the sheep and fivefold for the ox. [The Torah had compassion on the thief, who was forced to carry the sheep on his shoulders and be degraded, and therefore made a "discount" for one who steals a sheep.] However, our Sages said that all these laws are collected only when there are ordained (semuchim) judges, as it is written, "וְאֵלֶּה הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים אֲשֶׁר תָּשִׂים לִפְנֵיהֶם" ("And these are the ordinances which you shall set before them") — meaning before the ordained judges, ordained one from the mouth of another up to Moshe Rabbeinu, and nowadays we do not have such judges, and therefore we do not adjudicate the laws of fines, and a person must pay only the principal — the value of the theft itself without any addition (Shulchan Aruch CM siman 1 se'if 1; and Shulchan Aruch of the Alter Rebbe, Laws of Damages to Body and Soul, se'if 15).

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