Private legal practitioner, Samson Lardy Anyenini has opposed the popular assertion that a police officer can at his or her discretion give a driver 24 hours to produce the licence.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, the Newsfile host insisted that the 24-hour period for a driver to produce their licence is clearly spelt out in the law.
Citing Regulation 47, sub-section Regulation 4, he said, “Where a person driving a motor vehicle is required to produce a licence, a certificate or a document relevant to driving a motor vehicle. That person shall produce it immediately or within 24 hours of being required to produce that licence.”
“So you either produce it immediately or you are afforded 24 hours within which you produce it. So it is not the discretion of the officer.”
On the back of this, Mr Anyenini said the time has come for people to stop saying that the police have the discretion.
“Let’s avoid suggesting, even remotely that it is the discretion of the officer who stops you to give you 24 hours within which to produce your licence when it is required.”
He further noted that the laws were made to be more beneficial to the people.
“Who are we? Are we robots? Do we need all that directions? We don’t because we are supposed to exhibit reasonable wisdom.”
Conversations about drivers’ licences became topical after the DVLA in a letter said they would impound any vehicle whose driver fails to produce a licence upon demand.
On Tuesday, private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu said police officers do not have the mandate to impound a vehicle if the driver fails to produce his or her licence.
According to the lawyer, it is rather wrongful parking that warrants the impoundment of the vehicle.
He, therefore, argued that it will be inappropriate if a cop impounds a vehicle over failure to show a licence.
“Failure to produce a licence doesn’t result in impounding of a vehicle and we are not about to allow that now. The Police will be breaking the law if they should start. You can’t just seize someone’s property just like that. The police don’t also have the right to take the licence to the police station.”
“If you don’t have a licence they could charge you for driving without a licence and that is a different matter, but if you have it and it’s not with you, you can always go and bring it,” he explained.
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