We should thank Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail for clarifying the recent police action against motorists. Earlier, the impression given by the police is that what they issued to motorists are summonses and failure to pay would result in the motorist being arrested.

Now it is clear that after May 16 the police will stop errant motorists and serve them with summonses for them either to pay the compound or go to court and if they fail to attend court only will a warrant be applied for. The court will have to be satisfied that the summonses had been served before it will issue the warrant.

The next matter which I hope the AG will also clarify is this threat by JPJ to blacklist those motorists who failed to pay the summonses. It is not clear at what stage this blacklisting will occur. To this effect the JPJ has also mounted a website for motorists to check whether they have been blacklisted or not.

What most motorists would like to know is has the JPJ this power? If so, under what provision of what law were they given this power ? As far as I am aware, and I stand to be corrected, there is no such power given to the JPJ under any law. Then, would not their action be illegal? Should the JPJ therefore be allowed by the government to continue with this illegal act?

Some may say the motorists can take legal action against the JPJ. What good would that do as such cases would take months, if not years, to be decided and in the meantime what would happen to the expired road taxes and driving licences? The AG should please clarify and give proper directions.