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Clash between ministers over traffic offences

The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is incensed. The de facto law minister, Dato' Seri Rais Yatim, says there must be proof of the summons individually served before traffic offenders could be brought to court. They could not be handcuffed because they did not commit criminal offences. Dato' Seri Abdullah disagrees. His solution? Dato' Seri Rais must tell the police how to go about it. And learn from them how impratical the law is to overcome police inefficiency. He makes it clear the police would continue to do what is illegal, and motorists with traffic offences must pay up. But should not the police take legal advise before it goes on a rampage?

Since Dato' Seri Rais has made a strong case, it is for the police to consult him, not the other way around. The way the deputy prime minister puts it, it is Dato' Seri Rais who has made the mistake, and he must explain himself to the police. To add insult to injury, he is bluntly told why the police must do as it does because the present system is so bound with legal niceties and so impractical. And why when the police say you have committed an offence, you cannot be but guilty. In other words, a subtle hint to the de fact law minister he should know which side the bread is buttered, especially since he should know who the next prime minister is.

Dato' Seri Abdullah, who is also home minister, cares not a hoot about the law. Law is what the government deems it is, not what is in the statute books. When the law stands in the way of the police, it can, with impunity, be ignored. Because it is more important to exercise greater control over road users "in view of the high accident rate". The National Front (BN) has become so used to not address problems or engage in debate. So rather than address what Dato' Seri Rais raised, he shifts the goal posts.

He does not address Dato' Seri Rais's central complaint, that the police act beyond the law. He retorts as Malaysia with Singapore over the Pulau Tekong development: to raise different issues at different in an effort to confuse so she would not have to address the unpalatable. So, when Dato' Seri Rais said the summons are valid only if there is proof of delivery, Dato' Seri Abdullah says motorists who speed must be severely punished to reduce accidents. And, whether legal or not, motorists should pay up or face the consequences.

Then comes the Federal traffic police chief, Dato' Ahmad Bahrin Idrus, to insist all summonses sent to traffic offenders are by AR registered post. They are not, Datuk. Parking offences, which is a traffic offence, are not. The summons is printed at the bottom of the traffic ticket to appear in court on a particular day if the offence is not compounded. I dare say that most of the outstanding 700,000 summonses since 1999 do not comply. But he insists: "So, the question of the matter should not be raised at all." Indeed. But could the deputy prime minister or the police categorically assert Dato' Seri Rais is talking through his hat?

In all this, one central fact is ignored: the police inefficiency that caused this. If we listen to what the police has to say, it is the best possible force in the world, its policemen icons of probity, it does not manhandle those it arrests, it follows the law with the utmost probity. All who tells otherwise slanders an otherwise excellent institution. To those at the receiving end, it is a different story. When the deputy prime minister of the country could be beaten to a pulp by no less than the Inspector-General of Police, one must shudder at what happens to lesser mortals unfortunate to be in police clutches. The IGP denied he did such a dastardly thing, and changed his mind only after a commission of inquiry found incontrovertible evidence that he did. Rather than defend Dato' Seri Anwar's action for damages for what the IGP said he did not, the government would now rather settle.

It is this, more than anything else, that gives the police its reputation. Dato' Seri Abdullah must support the police against the people. He depends on it, and more when he moves up, that he would not dare to challenge it. It is too dangerous an institution if it decides it would acts as it wants. Neither the Prime Minister nor home minister dared criticise the police in recent years. The police exist, in the public mind, to keep the government in power and provide a barrier between it and those who voted it in.

When it acts as now to go beyond the law to force the people to gather in police stations to settle summonses, it demeans it further. Especially, despite the large crowds outside, most police stations had only two counters open to take in the influx: one to collect payments and the other to issue receipts. The deputy prime minister and home minister would not dare tell the police to meet the de facto law minister. Nor could he agree with his minister that the law must be followed to the letter, even by the police. When the home minister cannot act to rein in the police force, what guarantee is there that the police does what it must in fairness and responsibility?

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my