Do you know that you can get into trouble with the Malaysian law by playing Pokemon Go on your mobile phone? It may seem like a harmless game but here are the top 5 offences you may not be aware of while playing.
1. Road Transport Offences
If you play Pokemon Go behind the wheels, BE PREPARED to be slapped with a road transport summons. You can be charged in the traffic court under Section 43(1) of the Road Transport Act 1987 and be convicted with a fine of not less than RM4k-RM10k or imprisonment for a term for maximum 12 months.
The exact provision reads:
1) A person who drives a motor vehicle on a road without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road shall be guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be punished with a fine of not less than four thousand ringgit and not more than ten thousand ringgit and shall also be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding twelve months.
2. Negligence
Watch where you’re going! Before you can finish reading this sentence, you may have walked into a busy street and caused a 5 car pile-up accident! Do you think you are not at fault? Think again. You may be liable for negligence by causing an accident. The court may apportion liability to you even to the extent of 100% and you will be liable to pay all compensation or damages to the victims.
3. Nuisance
Try playing with several Pokemon players. You all giggle your way through the night and have a good time right? Fair warning you will likely get pots and pans thrown at you from all floors of the apartment complex. So do we mean you can’t giggle? Oh no, you can, but not when it causes nuisance or interferes with a person’s quiet enjoyment of his property or land.
4. Trespass
“Do not enter or you will be prosecuted”. This billboard comes often and it is very real if you step into a land without any permission granted to you. Just imagine trying to hit the pokemon with the ball when you are equally hunted down by the landowner.
The definition is a wide one and for your benefit, we extract them below.
Halsbury’s Laws of England (3rd Ed) Vol 38 at p 739 which states:
Every unlawful entry by one person on land in the possession of another is a trespass for which an action lies, although no actual damage is done. A person trespasses upon land if he wrongfully sets foot on, or rides or drives over it, or takes possession of it, or expels the person in possession, or pulls down or destroys anything permanently fixed to it, or wrongfully takes minerals from it, or places or fixes anything on it or in it, or, it seems, if he erects or suffers to continue on his own land anything which invades the airspace of another, or if he discharges water from another’s land, or sends filth or any injurious substance which has been collected by him on his own land on to another’s land.
5. Unlawful Assembly
You must be wondering, why are we drawing an analogy for Pokemon players using Bersih or red shirt supporters?
We’re not, actually. As long as there are more than 5 players congregating in an area with the objective to conduct mischief, you may commit an offence under Section 143 of the Penal Code punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months or with fine or with both.
Section 141 Penal Code provides the grounds on when an assembly is an unlawful one.
An assembly of five or more persons is designated an “unlawful assembly”, if the common object of the persons composing that assembly is-
(a) to overawe by criminal force, or show of criminal force, the Legislative or Executive Government of Malaysia or any State, or any public servant in the exercise of the lawful power of such public servant;
(b) to resist the execution of any law, or of any legal process;
(c) to commit any mischief or criminal trespass, or other offence;
(d) by means of criminal force, or show of criminal force, to any person, to take or obtain possession of any property, or to deprive any person of the enjoyment of a right of way, or of use of water or other incorporeal right of which he is in possession or enjoyment, or to enforce any right or supposed right; or
(e) by means of criminal force, or show of criminal force, to compel any person to do what he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do what he is legally entitled to do.
Credits:
Car Designed by Freepik
Characters Designed by Freepik
People Designed by Freepik
