Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
A COURT of Appeal ruling has halted the illegal police practice of issuing traffic tickets requiring motorists to attend court to answer charges of careless driving.
Last week, the Appeal Court ruled that, for such an offence, the motorist must be warned for prosecution and then a summons issued and served on the motorist to attend court.
The Appeal Court said the ticket could be used as a warning, but not the process by which the motorist was brought before the court.
The court made the ruling in the case of Anthony Lewis, a motorist who was issued with a traffic ticket on February 26, 2005, to attend court to answer a charge of careless driving. Lewis was required to attend the Resident Magistrate's Court in Mandeville, Manchester, on April 14, 2005, where he pleaded not guilty to the charge. The case was put off to August 11, 2005, at which time Lewis was represented by attorney-at-law Debayo Adedipe.
ARGUMENT OF 'NO CHARGE'
Mr. Adedipe argued that Lewis ought to be released because there was no charge and no proceedings effectively commenced against him. He pointed out that there was a traffic ticket on the record and careless driving was not an offence for which a traffic ticket could be issued.
Mr. Adedipe stressed that, for such an offence, prosecution must be commenced in the Petty Sessions Court by the laying of information setting out the charge and then a summons issued to the motorist to attend court.
Resident Magistrate Marva McDonald-Bishop reserved her ruling and sent the case to the Court of Appeal for a ruling on the point of law.
The Appeal Court was asked to rule on several questions, one of which was "whether a charge of careless driving can properly be commenced by the issuance of a traffic ticket." In response to that question the Appeal Court, comprising Court of Appeal President Paul Harrison, Mr. Justice Howard Cooke and Mrs. Justice Hazel Harris, said "no".
ACCORDING TO LAW
The court was also asked "whether the mere delivery of the traffic ticket to the court's office by the police constitutes the laying of an information or the making of a complaint for the purposes of a prosecution." On that issue, the Appeal Court also said "no".
The court held that, under section 10 of the Road Traffic Act, information on which a charge such as careless driving is laid must be brought to the court's office within six months after the alleged commission of the offence. The court said the summons emanating from the information may be issued outside of the six-month period.
It was the court's finding that Lewis had been brought before the Petty Sessions Court in Mandeville by an invalid process.
However, the court sent Lewis' case back to the Resident Magistrate's Court in Mandeville for continuation and for the summons to be issued for careless driving, if necessary, depending on his surrender to the jurisdiction of that court.
