Reckless charge for reckless driving: AG's murder charge spree denies justice for victims

We refer to the Attorney-General’s decision on June 3 to investigate a 19year-old involved in a fatal accident in Kluang, Johor for murder, under Section 302 of the Penal Code.

The young man has since been remanded for four more days beginning June 5 for the murder investigation.

This is the latest in a series of cases in which the AG has exercised his prosecutorial power to pursue murder charges in road accident cases, despite the fact that the prosecution will be unlikely to prove intention, which is a vital element to prove in murder cases.

Any person with even a surface-level understanding of criminal law is aware of this, yet we continue to watch the police and AG persist in this futile endeavour.

Multiple deaths have occurred in this accident, and it is imperative that the government conducts its case properly, efficiently, and in a manner that best ensures justice for the victims.

However, tragedies like this are being met with a preference for nonsensical charges motivated by pressure to satisfy public uproar, which will no doubt impede the AG’s goal of obtaining a conviction.

There is no benefit to be gained from charging reckless driving suspects with murder, where it will be next to impossible to prove intent to murder.

What is likely to happen is that these cases will fail at the prosecution stage and the accused drivers will be acquitted, or the courts will exercise their discretion to order the charges to be amended. The former will result in a severe injustice to the victims of the accident, caused by the AG’s own mulish stubbornness to persist in an untenable murder charge. Whereas the latter will result in injustice to the accused person who would have unjustifiably been held without bail on a murder charge.

Furthermore, this trigger-happy approach to murder charges has cast a cloud of uncertainty over the criminal justice system. Malaysians must now fear that any mistake they make on the road, large or small, may result in a charge of murder against them.

The more regrettable aspect of this is that the AG suffers no shortage of legal tools that would assist in charting a more effective path to securing convictions.

Section 41 of the Road Transport Act 1987 was drafted specifically to address deaths caused by reckless or dangerous driving, carrying a maximum punishment of 10 years’ imprisonment and a RM20,000 fine.

When road accident cases are prosecuted for murder, such provisions are made redundant and toothless, defeating the very purpose for which they were legislated into existence.

The AG bears responsibility for the prosecution of criminal cases and is the lynchpin of the criminal justice system of Malaysia. The execution of such a heavy responsibility should be fully informed by the law and the principles of criminal justice.

The AG cannot allow himself to be swayed by public discourse and online chatter.

The real solution to the problem is for the government to allocate more resources to provide for road safety measures to reduce fatal accidents.

We therefore urge the AG to put an end to the practice of indiscriminately charging road accident suspects with murder. He must also urgently review recent high-profile road accident cases in which murder charges have been unnecessarily brought. Only this will answer public unease over the spate of murder charges in road traffic cases.

Dina Zamri is coordinator of rights group Lawyers for Liberty.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of MalaysiaNow.