Editorial | It’s an amnesty, Mr Morgan

The Collins Concise Dictionary, 21st Century Edition assigns to the word ‘amnesty’ the following meanings:

1. “A general pardon, especially for offences against a government”; and

2. “A period during which a law is suspended to allow offenders to admit their crime without fear of prosecution.”

Variations of that definition include to overlook, and forget, a transgression.

Jamaica’s Government, through the country’s Parliament, established a law to regulate how motorists and pedestrians use the island’s roads, breaches of which may be punishable by fines and/or imprisonment.

For people who operate motor vehicles, an acknowledgement or conviction for violating the law – for which they may be required to pay fixed fines, depending on the offence – may incur demerit points on their driver’s licences. If these points accumulate beyond a certain amount, a licence is suspended.

Indeed, under the existing Road Traffic Act, a driver who accumulates between 10 and 13 demerit points “shall be disqualified from holding or obtaining a driver’s licence for a period of six months”. For 14, but fewer than 20 demerit points, the disqualification period is one year. For 20 or more such points, the suspension is for two years.

These are not inconsequential penalties in a modern society where an individual’s ability to operate a motor car, and being licensed to do so, borders on essential. But they reflect how seriously governments take adherence to the traffic rules.

MAKES SENSE

Which makes sense. If drivers operated according to their own codes, it would lead to chaos and anarchy, which many people believe far outside the realm of what takes place in Jamaica despite the existence of road traffic laws.

Which brings us to the reasons for defining the word ‘amnesty’, providing a basic outline of the demerit points system.

Next February, a new Road Traffic Act will come into force. It will substantially increase the monetary penalties for breaking the rules, and the Government says that it will be harder for people to escape paying their fines.

The police’s traffic ticketing system is being fully computerised and integrated across government agencies. So a traffic cop issuing a fixed-penalty ticket will be able to immediately check whether the ticketed driver has unpaid tickets or has failed to attend court to answer for the alleged offence.

This is significant. The authorities say that there are hundreds of thousands of unpaid tickets in the system, the vast majority of which were issued to public transport operators, who enjoy notoriety for breaking traffic rules.

Last month, thousands of bus and route taxi drivers struck for a day to press the Government for a ticket amnesty – there were amnesties in 2012 and 2017 – ahead of the promulgation of the new law.

The bus and taxi drivers were apparently concerned about the large amounts of money they would have to pay. But they also claimed that poor record-keeping, and an inefficient computerised system, meant the fines that were already cleared often could not be accounted for.

Despite the strike, the Government appeared to hold its ground. This week, though, it blinked.

The administration is providing a ticket amnesty. But it is contorting itself to define it as something other than an amnesty.

Nonetheless, all traffic tickets issued up to February 1, 2018, as well as any demerit points accrued up to then, will become null and void and, according to a government statement, “will not be transitioned” to the new act. This will be declared in legislation.

Second, any demerit points accruing from tickets issued after February 1, 2018, will be expunged if all outstanding tickets are paid by February 1, 2023.

CLEAN SLATE

In other words, the Government intends to start with a clean slate when the new law comes into force, and when it fully rolls out what it says is a robust, new, digitised Traffic Ticket Management System (TTMS). Some demerit points are being expunged without proviso, while more recent ones will be eliminated if people pay their fines.

Put another way, having broken the law, they will receive pardons on portions of their penalties if they pay their fines – which is tantamount to admitting to a wrong.

But the Government argues that what it is doing is not an amnesty because, according to the information minister, Robert Morgan, “nowhere in the release does the word ‘amnesty’ appear”.

Apparently, people have to “attend court to clear their tickets”, rather than paying at tax offices. “An amnesty means a removal of the judicial process,” Mr Morgan claimed in a tweet. And in interviews.

He sees political mischief by media that identified the programme for what it is. He spins.

The 2017 Road Traffic (Temporary Ticket Amnesty) Act called for the payment of overdue tickets – which also cleared demerit points – at tax offices “or any other institution specified by the minister by notice published in the Gazette”. Where a fine is collected does not obviate the fact.

Governments sometimes make strategic or political decisions in what they believe to be the country’s best interest. Citizens, however, grow cynical if they believe government is not being honest.

Despite Mr Morgan’s claim to the contrary, this action has all the characteristics of an amnesty. It looks like one, walks like one, and chirps – or is that tweet – like an amnesty. It is an amnesty.