On Ops Warta II, let me get this right. There is, to begin with, 4.6 million summonses over a three-year period from 1999 to 2001.

One of the excuses was that traffic police faced practical problems serving the summonses. Maybe the Road Transport Department did not provide the police with the names and addresses of the cars booked for traffic offences fast enough. Maybe the errant motorists' addresses were outdated. But these problems would not account for more than a minority of the 4.6 million summonses, so the backlog might be largely contributed by inefficiency or lack of resources of the traffic police.

If what Minister in Prime Minister's Department Dr Rais Yatim said was true, that the traffic offender was legally not bound to enquire about existence of summonses and that the onus to serve them reposed on the authorities, then it would be reasonable to assume that Ops Warta II has proceeded entirely upon a flawed legal principle.

The police should not cover and rectify their own default in managing a backlog of accumulated summonses by overzealously enforcing traffic law in so vigorous a campaign as to turn the country — by road blocks, house-to-house searches and ambushes in public car parks — into a police state.

Home Affairs Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi should direct the operation to stop since its main thrust is founded upon a doubtful legal principle. To push forward regardless is to open the floodgates to waves of counter legal suits against the government by those affected.

The Home Ministry should have benefit of legal advice from its own lawyers while the police, as enforcers of the law, should also know the law.

There is, therefore, no need for Rais to meet the police and explain the law to them or for him to understand the practical constraints faced by the police while executing summonses (The Star, 5th May).

Constraints faced by the police may in some cases be insurmountable, but they cannot used as an excuse by the police to pass the buck of its failure to manage these constraints to the motorists and override their legal rights (to be served summonses) in that process.

The home affairs minister should act decisively to undo the mistake of this operation by one of its departments and not rely on another Minister in the Prime Minister's Department to deal with it.