Popular demands for justice in vehicle licensing violations

Alanbat - Minas Bani Yassin

Translated by Maysara AlShoubaki

Many citizens have complained to AlAnbat about their injustice following the announcement by the Public Security Directorate of a decision to impound any vehicle that has not been licensed for six months, which coincides with the approval of the draft amended law for the traffic law for the current year 2023, and start over in light of the crises they have been exposed to due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its repercussions.

Citizens demanded that their economic conditions be taken into account, by granting them a time period to license their vehicles, and exemptions or installment plans for the fines resulting from their violations, stressing that the lack of licensing is not a failure on their part, but rather the economic hardship they are going through.

Economic expert Wajdi Makhamrah said that the lack of licensing of vehicles is in itself a violation of the law, and that even if the economic conditions that citizens are suffering from are difficult, they are not a justification for not licensing.

He pointed out in his interview with AlAnbat that the government is negligent in the issue of licensing, as it would have been better to pay more attention to the issue of the number of vehicles that have not been licensed for 3 years and how the number reached this point, and the need for there to be communication with citizens and to grant them some facilities such as installment plans, and to grant them a specified period of time to correct their conditions.

He added that the decision to impound vehicles is a correct and logical decision, because the issue of licensing has security implications and implications for public safety, especially recurring traffic accidents and the procedures that follow them, and that the reality requires the application of the law and not the citizen's negligence in this aspect, taking into account the economic and financial situation of the citizen.

Makhamrah continued, that the matter of the exemption that citizens were waiting for is a mistake that they bear the consequences of now, especially since no decision has been issued regarding the exemption of citizens from licensing their vehicles, and this confirms that some of them were not a matter of financial conditions, but rather postponing licensing awaiting the exemption.

In this regard, he suggested that the government give citizens a period of time to correct the situation and license vehicles before ratifying the impoundment law, and then implement the law and impound unlicensed vehicles, calling on citizens to have a sense of responsibility towards the rule of law.

The Ministry of Interior had announced a decision to impound any vehicle that has not been licensed for more than six months, due to the existence of more than a quarter of a million unlicensed vehicles for more than three years in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, according to statistics from the Public Security Directorate, and due to the significant increase in the number of accidents and injuries.