Sunday Times 2
Law and order within a colonised mind
View(s):A colonised mind is identified by African thinkers to explain much of the problems they encounter. This applies to many fields, including law and order and is relevant to Sri Lanka as well.
Rule of law and law and order have been discussed interminably from legalistic, managerial, administrative and even economic and finance angles. The relevance of colonised mind is appropriate in the area of law and order as well. A colonised/colonial mind is a one which is so occupied, and settled. A colonial mind is a consciousness which runs through into post-colonial era without change. These are but generalities, particulars of which explain better.
Concept of policing
Police are the people, people are the police, said Sir Robert Peel. That said an innate truth of a concept expressed in 1829, when organising a police force in London. That saying came of an independent mind, not clearly one from a colonised mind. In this country, policing was, however, inevitably, a product of a colonised mind. Therefore, the native facts of policing since gansabha days have been lost with that law stipulation. The result is that, today in Sri Lanka, in the area of law and order, two minds operate; a pre-colonial mind and a post-colonial mind. A colonialist mind prescribes for a colonist people. The latter accepts the instruction subjecting them to conditions of appropriation. The reality then is that the concept of policing has undergone a substantive change from an earlier striking indigenous truth to one stipulated later, if not immediately obvious. Here again, the practical consequences of the variation emerge.
Within this colonial heritage, the idea of policing in Sri Lanka is the settled colonial concept. Therefore, any allusion, to the old ways, has the limited notion today of community policing (CP). To the colonialist mind, CP is but a concession on offer to the police and the people. That the colonised mind did not understand, thereby, that the very concept of CP is either contradictory in terms or at best a redundancy. Police and community are but one. There cannot be one without the other, unless policing is with regime policing.
The current experience is very much that of the latter, one of regime policing. Details were given earlier. There is simply no idea of CP at Mullaitivu, Ratupaswala, and elsewhere. A colonised mind can yet accommodate the regime policing action only keeping CP in the pocket. If regime policing is the problem Senior Police Officers may appeal to the prelates, though they may not help the senior Police Officers as done before.
Police reform
To bridge the gap, therefore, between the colonial/imperial control and the colonists, Police reform is much spoken of since independence. But yet all this so-called Police reform has only had some limited effect. Several reform initiatives were repeatedly undertaken, but their outcome continues to be inadequate. Even the current Minster spoke of police reform but has not proceeded from that point. Police reforms hitherto do not work since the approach has been superficial. There is no change of law to make effective police reform.
Law reform
Prof Leslie Sebba of the Hebrew University says law, substantially retained in post-colonial societies, is the law enacted by the colonial power. There was no dramatic change in the law so inherited. (Leslie Sebba: The Creation and Evolution of Criminal law in colonial and post-colonial societies. Vol 3 no 1 Varia 1999 p 71-99.)
Sebba did not ascribe reasons for this retention. Retention of much of the imperial law was, simply, an act of a colonial mind or a mind colonising itself. The action of the elite was also one of fortifying the inherited law while subjecting others to conditions of appropriation. The reason is one of power of the law-making elite. Whenever a change was attempted, as with conciliation boards, the courts resisted the change on grounds that the change was a usurpation of judicial power by one outside court. Yet another instance was to deny the added worth of the statement of a witness given to police — now recorded by Police with signature and oath administered to be used in corroboration. Previously these were not to be signed; they could be used only to contradict the witness. There are many other instances, not cited for want of space, of judicial opposition to changes of law. The inherited order is yet jealously guarded.
Criminal Justice System
As a result of the limited concept of Police, the inadequacy in attempts to reform police and the avoidance of considered law reform have an impact on the Criminal Justice System (CJS) which administers a Rule of law for Law and Order. The CJS stands by, inert, thereby to make even a change for anything understood as Justice, Morality, Ethics and the Common Good. The CJS is, instead, is severely afflicted to serve due process. This includes all agencies of the CJS. Details are well known, need no repetition. They all engage in a mind colonising itself, not moving beyond, over the people who remain in abject subjection before the CJS.
Law and Order remains at best within a colonized mind.
(The writer is a Retired Senior Superintendent of Police.
He can be contacted at seneviratnetz@gmail.com)