Traffic courts accused of imposing illegal fines

Prosecutors at the traffic court have been imposing illegal penalties on motorists arrested for alleged speed limit violations, a petitioner claims.

They have been penalising motorists on non-existent charges which are inconsistent with offences and penalties under the traffic (minor offences) rules, Mr Allen Gichuhi, a lawyer appearing for Mr Ankush Manoj Shah, said in the petition to be heard today at the criminal review court presided by Judge Ngenye Macharia.

“The excessive traffic charges penalties imposed appear to be duplicate as the 1984 regulations made under Section 117 have not been repealed,” the lawyer said.

Mr Shah, says that the prosecution has continuously applied laws which have not been repealed to the detriment of the motorists.

He was charged on August 28 in a traffic court, Nairobi, but declined to plead to the charges as they were duplicated, thus attracting more penalties as opposed to the regulations set out in the Traffic Act.

“The court should have been guided to ensure that the charge sheets prescribe in accordance with the nature of the offence and attract the correct penalty,” the petitioner states.

ILLEGAL PENALTIES

“Citizens exposed to illegal penalties are deprived of their rights,” the lawyer argues.

“Section 70(5)(b) clearly makes it an offence if you exceed the prescribed speed limit by 20kph, however, supposing as the NTSA argues that when you travel at 120kph where the traffic signs states that the speed is 100kph or 70kph then it should attract a less severe penalty that provides for fines of Sh300 or Sh500, the petition reads.”

Motorists have been paying upto Sh 20,000 for the speed violations.

The trial magistrate dismissed a preliminary objection to Mr Shah’s trial on grounds that it did not raise a point of law as he was deemed to have been inviting the court to determine whether he was driving on a dual carriage way with the prescribed speed limit or not.

However, he has now pegged his review on the fact that the traffic court uses standard form charge sheets that bear no relation to the offences allegedly committed.

“This in turn has a serious bearing on the magnitude of the bail terms imposed which in reality are unrealistically harsh and deprive motorists of the due process of the law, one is forced to deposit colossal sums of money which should instead be vested in an economic activity,” the petitioner states.