COMMENT | If the law supposes that, the law is an ass

COMMENT | “What you don’t know won’t hurt you,” goes the adage. But in law, the opposite is true: ignorantia juris non excusat - ignorance of the law excuses no one.

Fair enough. You cannot plead ignorance to escape liability, but what happens when the law itself is so disconnected from common sense that ordinary people break it without even knowing?

What happens when the very official invoking that law has his own credibility issues?

Here is my problem. Since the government introduced controls on petrol subsidies last September, I have been regularly breaking the law.

Not deliberately. I no longer drive. When my wife drives up to fill the tank, I go to the counter, hand over my identification card and cash - prepaid, as required - and we pump.

For convenience and depending on who is carrying the MyKad, I sometimes use my wife’s. The kiosk operator, where I have been a customer for over 30 years, has never objected.

Why would he? To him, and to me, it’s a simple family transaction. One spouse helping another. That’s not fraud. That is called marriage.

No IC, no subsidised fuel

Then on Monday, I was told I am an offender. The National Registration Department (NRD) says using another person’s MyKad - even a family member’s - to buy subsidised fuel is prohibited.

NRD director-general Badrul Hisham Alias cited Regulation 25 of the National Registration Regulations 1990 - using or possessing another person’s identity card is an offence.

Come again? Can’t I use my IC to buy petrol for my wife’s car? Can’t I use her IC to buy petrol for her car?

“All counter transactions, including the purchase of fuel, must be conducted personally by the actual MyKad owner,” Badrul said. (This one-line addition makes a lot of difference!)

Let that sink in. Under this interpretation, if your wife is sick, or tired, or waiting in the car with a sleeping child, you cannot simply walk into a petrol station and use your wife’s IC to fill up the family car.

You must drag her to the counter. Every single time. The law, apparently, does not recognise the concept of “helping your spouse”.

This is not about subsidy leakage. This is not about syndicates smuggling or surreptitiously buying subsidised fuel. This is about a bureaucrat applying a regulation so literally that it becomes absurd.

So, I must conclude: the law is an ass.

Before anyone accuses me of name-calling, let me explain. In Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist”, Mr Bumble is told that “the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.”

He replies: “If the law supposes that, the law is an ass - an idiot.”

I am not calling the Lord Master of our births, deaths, and citizenship an idiot. That would be rude. This is a figure of speech. But I am saying that any law which criminalises a husband buying petrol for his wife’s car has lost sight of its purpose.

The purpose of the subsidy rule is to prevent abuse by non-eligible foreigners or commercial misusers. Not to police family kindness.

The enforcement problem

And this brings me to a deeper point. When a law is so widely ignored that most people do not even know it exists, the problem is not the people. The problem is the law. Or the way it is being enforced. Or, in this case, the person doing the enforcing.

Let’s talk about Badrul. Isn’t this the same man who signed a false statutory declaration attesting that he had issued birth certificates based on “secondary evidence” to seven foreigners born a century ago?

Wasn’t his bluff called by the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa), which produced original birth documents contradicting Malaysia’s allegedly doctored submissions?

Didn’t he issue MyKads and citizenship certificates to seven foreign footballers who couldn’t even speak Bahasa Malaysia - a prerequisite for citizenship?

Let me repeat that. A prerequisite for citizenship.

And yet, somehow, these players passed. Somehow, the NRD verified their Malaysian heritage. And when questioned, Badrul promised to answer after a conclusive report.

That report has been out for two months. Where is his answer? Silence.

So here is the irony. The same man who cannot explain how seven foreign footballers obtained Malaysian identity documents is now lecturing ordinary Malaysians about the proper use of a MyKad.

The same man who signed a questionable statutory declaration wants to quote Regulation 25 as if it were holy scripture.

You cannot have it both ways. Either the law is a precise instrument, in which case, explain the footballers. Or the law has some flexibility - in which case, show some compassion to a husband buying petrol for his wife.

Most Malaysians understand the difference between real abuse and everyday life. We know syndicates are using foreign nationals to drain subsidised fuel. We support action against them.

But going after a senior citizen using his wife’s IC at the neighbourhood station? That is not enforcement. That is harassment dressed up as diligence.

What the NRD chief is doing here is selective outrage. He picks an obscure clause, ignores decades of common practice, and threatens legal action against people who have never intended any harm.

Meanwhile, questions about his own department’s integrity go unanswered.

If the law supposes that a husband cannot help his wife buy petrol, Mr Bumble was right the first time.

And if the law supposes that the man who signed off on dubious citizenships gets to lecture the rest of us on proper documentation, then the law is not just an ass. It is a hypocrite.

R NADESWARAN is an award-winning journalist whose journalistic career has spanned more than five decades. Comments: citizen.nades22@gmail.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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