The game won't even let me fine someone who already has a fine.
Your victim already has fines that are not yet paid.
Give him a break! We are very serious about this, repeated finings destroy the fun of playing the game because the player doesn't have gold for a long time.
Just because the game didn't predict checks for power in religions doesn't mean that restrictions wouldn't be in line with the philosophy of the game, it just means that we have !@#$ religion mechanics that only really make some sense when you consider they are copy-pasted from guilds.
Because hey, somehow fining a royal that already has a small fine is considered too unfun by the game, but holding hundreds of players hostage by a couple of clicks is perfectly legitimate?