“Public Branding” Of Traffic Offenders Examined

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31170, 21 September 1966, Page 14

“Public Branding” Of Traffic Offenders Examined

The recent amendment to the Motor Drivers’ Regulations, providing that not only new applicants for drivers’ licences but also those convicted of traffic offences and certain crimes must carry “L” plates, is strongly attacked by a Christchurch barrister and former Crown Prosecutor, Mr P. T. Mahon, in an article in the New Zealand Law Society Journal.

Mr Mahon, in the article, protests against the “public branding of offenders as a form of punishment.” He suggests that this is going back to the Middle Ages, and likens it to the Nazis procedure in identifying Jews. He submits that the amendment should be “revoked forthwith” and that “the whole concept and scope of probationary licenses should be reconsidered.”

The New Zealand Law Society, the Constitutional Society and the Automobile Association have also made submissions to the Minister of Transport (Mr McAlpine) against aspects of the amendment. Mr McAlpine last week apnounced that the amendment was being looked at again. In the law journal article, headed “The Scarlet Letter,” Mr Mahon has no quarrel with the amendment so far as it introduces the “concept of the ‘probationary licence’ ” for new applicants for drivers licences into our road traffic laws.

“But probation licences are not confined to cases of new applicants for motor drivers’ licences. The obligation to carry ‘L’ plates has also been made a form of punishment for those convicted of traffic offences and certain defined crimes, and this aspect of the new regulations, containing the novel feature of self-ad-vertisement of guilt, seems worthy of a brief examination.” ■

Mr Mahon points out that the Court may order, under

the amendment, an endorsement for “practically every traffic offence, except for a first or second conviction for speeding, and also including unlawful conversion of a motor vehicle and the endorsement requires the exhibition of “L” plates. “The new power of endorsement also applies to the crimes set out in Part II of the Third Schedule (which include arson, aggravated assault, assaulting a female or child, causing wilful damage) if such crime is committed by a person driving or in charge of a motor vehicle.'

“The new regulations go even further. If a person is convicted of one of the offences or crimes just mentioned and is disqualified from holding or obtaining a driver’s licence for a period of 12 months or more, the appropriate local authority is required to endorse the licence form unless the Court sees fit to order otherwise. Varying Degrees “It will be apparent from the foregoing summary that the carrying of an ‘L’ plate on a motor vehicle will indicate varying degrees of conduct on the part of the driver. In some instances the statutory insignia will merely be evidence of the status of the driver as a ‘new applicant’, while in other cases (indistinguishable to the observer) a more sinster connotation will be intended.

“Take the case of a young man seen to be driving a car with ‘L’ plates. He may be merely a ‘new applicant,’ having recently been granted a driver’s licence. The letter ‘L,’ printed in red on a white background, four inches high and three inches across, will correctly identify him to the attentive observer as a ‘learner,’ a term which might not, however, pay full regard to the fact that he has qualified, after appropriate pupillage, as a licensed driver.

“But our youthful driver may not turn out to be a ‘new applicant’ after all. He may be a professional car converter who has been previously disqualified under Part IV of the Transport Act and whose licence remains endorsed under Amendment No. 4.

“Devout Clergyman”

“Take the case of a middleaged gentleman driver whose car is also seen to be carrying ‘L’ plates. He might fall into one of several categories. He might be a ‘new applicant.’ “He might be a convicted incendiarist who has used his car during the commission of his crime.

“He might be a devout clergyman who has enjoyed an impeccable driving record for 30 years before inadvertently failing to see a car approaching from his right one foggy evening while driving home from vespers. “In most systems of jurisprudence, the principles of punishment for criminal and quasi-criminal offences are clearly delineated. In our present case, however, the ingenious officials who formulated the principles of Amendment No. 4 have succeeded in arranging that the innocent and guilty will be branded alike.

Public Guilt j “The purpose of Amendment No. 4, apart from making provision for ‘new applicants’ is to compel traffic offenders to carry on their vehicles public notification that their licences have been endorsed, and one cannot help reflecting that in this respect the real criminals in our society are more fortunately placed. “The burglar shares with the traffic offender the initial publicity of Court proceedings, except in those cases where the burglar’s name is suppressed, but thereafter he can go about his daily or nightly avocations without being compelled to carry evidence of his guilt for public display. “Why is the traffic offender singled out for this novel type of treatment? It cannot be for identification purposes, for the recently qualified and innocent driver must also carry the same plates. The purpose of the ‘L’ plate requirement in the case of traffic offenders can only be to inflict humiliation as an addition to the conventional punishment.

Branding Precedents

“There is, of course, sound precedent for the public branding of offenders. It was part of the accepted criminal procedure of the Middle Ages that persons convicted of certain offences should carry with them the indelible mark of their conviction. “In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel. ‘The Scarlet Letter,’ the adulteress Hester Prynne is sent to the pillory by her Puritan accusers with the letter ‘A’ embroidered in scarlet on her bodice. “The Nazis used a similar identifying process with the Jews, although with a different colour scheme.

“I would respectfully suggest, however, that such denunciatory measures are hardly appropriate to our supposedly free society. If the Transport Department believes that traffic offenders should be compelled to bear some form of , public stigmata in expiation of their sins, then it should devise some appropriate emblem applicable to traffic offenders alone. “It should them formulate the proposal in a draft amendment to section 44 of the Transport Act and have the matter publicly debated in Parliament. Submissions “What has been done in the present case is to incorporate this radical reform in a regulation which introduced the apparently innocent concept of ‘probationary licences.’ “I submit that Amendment No. 4 should be revoked forthwith and that the whole concept and scope of ‘probationary licences’ be reconsidered. I recognise to the fullest extent the ever-increasing problems which the Transport Department has to face, but they are not likely to be resolved by this misguided plan which identifies the innqcent with the guilty and which can only bring in its train manifold injustice and public disrespect,” the article concludes.