JUDGMENT

Thomson CJ:

This is an appeal against a judgment of one of the Kuala Lumpur Magistrates and I am compelled to say straightaway that I have seldom come across anything more perverse or lacking in rudimentary commonsense.

The respondent was charged with driving a motor van in Princes Road, Kuala Lumpur, at a speed exceeding 20 miles per hour. He claimed trial and at the close of the prosecution case the Magistrate held there was no case to answer and made an order of acquittal and discharge. The Public Prosecutor appealed against that decision and some time later the Magistrate put on record grounds of judgment which would appear to have very little in common with whatever he had in mind when he discharged the respondent.

The evidence for the prosecution was that of a Police corporal who said that he was on duty on a motor-cycle in Princes Road when he saw the respondent driving a motor van. He followed the van for about half a mile and his speedometer showed between 35 to 38 miles per hour. He then overtook the van and stopped it. He said "Princes Road is a 20 mph area". This witness was not cross-examined by the defendant nor was he asked any question by the Magistrate, who when he had heard his evidence dismissed the summons.

In his grounds of judgment the Magistrate has given two reasons for taking that course.

The first is that the complainant, that is the Police corporal, "only suspected that the defendant was speeding because when he followed the defendant his motor-cycle speedometer was showing 35-38 mph. This may be quite true because he had to speed up in order to reach behind the defendant's car. But what was the actual speed of the defendant's car at that time?" This passage is simply putting words into the witness's mouth. The witness did not say anything about having to increase his speed to "reach behind" the respondent's van. What he said was that he followed it for about half a mile. If the

Magistrate had any doubts as to what the witness intended to convey he should have asked him a question to elucidate his meaning.

The second reason stated by the Magistrate was that the witness stated: "that Princes Road was a 20mph area but what evidence was adduced to substantiate it? None whatsoever."

On this I have two observations to make.

The first is that the Magistrate was bound by s. 57(1)(a) of the Evidence Ordinance, 1950 to take judicial notice of legal Notification No. 44 of 1956 which is a regulation having the force of law and which imposes a speed limit of 20 miles an hour on Princess Road from its junction with Batu Road to its junction with Circular Road. This Notification was quoted in the charge; and, even if it had not been, it was the Magistrate's business to ascertain whether or not it existed, for the slightest exercise of commonsense would have suggested that there would be some such restriction on a busy road like Princes Road.

In the second place, the refusal to accept the evidence of the Police witness was very offensive. That witness said there was a 20 miles per hour speed limit in force. His evidence was not accepted and the only reason stated for refusing to accept it was that no evidence was "adduced to substantiate it". The witness is a traffic policeman, presumably by reason of his rank of some experience. He was unlikely to be mistaken and to refuse to accept his evidence on a point like this on the ground that it was not "substantiated" was neither more nor less than to call him a liar.

If Magistrates are going to adopt this sort of attitude to Police evidence in connection with road traffic cases there will be an end to all law enforcement in the country. When a Police witness says something that is not inherently improbable his evidence must in the first instance be accepted. If he says he saw a cow jumping over the moon his evidence is, of course, not to be accepted, but if be says he saw a cow wandering along one of the main streets of Kuala Lumpur (the sort of thing