The recent incident of a lawyer being humiliated and abused by the officer-in charge of the Bambalapitiya police station when he had accompanied his client to the police station is manifestly symptomatic of the general malaise prevalent in this land.
It was not long ago that the current President of the Bar himself was assaulted by police officers when he intervened to prevent a neighbour’s son being treated roughly by the police on an allegation involving a car accident. The Supreme Court’s condemnation of this incident was in no uncertain terms. Justice CV Wigneswaran writing for the Court, (in Wagaachige Dayaratne vs IGP and Others, SC (FR) 337/2003 SCM 17.5.2004), ordered compensation payable by the State, in the absence of the specific identification of the culpable police officers, for the violation of rights of the petitioner for freedom against torture and degrading treatment, equality under the law and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention.
So now are we to say that lawyers have no right to accompany their clients to police stations? The absurdity of this question begs no answer.
Is the police force to blame for all ills?
The casual assumption would be, of course, that the police force (which terminology is more appropriate now than the police ‘service’) is to blame for all these ills. However, this is far from the case. Last week’s issue of this newspaper, in fact, juxtaposed reportage of the lawyer’s rough treatment by the police with another incident, this time involving a hapless policeman being himself abused by a politician for trying to do his duty. So the fault lies therein not in policemen or police women or indeed, in their ‘stars; but rather in the most complete politicisation of the command structure within the police.
The situation is such indeed that a good policeman has hardly any room to work properly, whether at senior or junior levels. Some years back we remember the instance of a senior police officer who was transferred by the government for his obstinacy in failing to harass and question a senior journalist who had angered the establishment by his investigations. Other similar instances are many.
The crippling of the National Police Commission
It was to address this overwhelming problem of the politicisation of the police structures that the National Police Commission was created. However this body itself was, very quickly, deprived of much of its public legitimacy by the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration in their tossing the 17th Amendment to the Constitution out of the proverbial window. In the result, we have a largely paralysed NPC and the police force which continues to lose respect in the public eye.
International scrutiny
regarding the politicisation of the police
These problems are glaring and have invited intense international scrutiny. In a May 2008 Follow-Up to Country Recommendations issued by the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Phillip Alston to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/8/3/Add.3, May 14 2008, Eighth session of the Human Rights Council), it was specifically found that the government’s response to human rights violations by the police was unsatisfactory. The Special Rapportuer reiterated that the system for conducting internal police inquiries was structurally flawed and, indeed, that inquiries had not been held into the cases the Special Rapporteur presented to the Government on earlier occasions.
It was pointed out that though the one relatively bright spot was the National Police Commission (NPC), which had been established in 2001 by a constitutional amendment with a mandate to conduct independent investigations and effective disciplinary procedures for police misconduct, the NPC’s long-term effectiveness was threatened by the lack of a strong constituency supporting its independence.
Further, the lack of implementation of his recommendations issued in 2006 was specifically noted. Thus, it was observed that “More than two years later, the government has completely failed to implement the Special Rapportuer’s recommendations for improving police respect for human rights, police effectiveness in preventing killings and police accountability. Indeed, there has been significant backward movement.”
Redressing deficiencies in the implementation of the Rule of Law .The 2006 Alston Report had emphasized redressing deficiencies of the Sri Lankan system of criminal justice, most particularly the culture and practices of police, prosecutors, and the judiciary. Its expansion into the wider context of the Rule of Law framework in Sri Lanka was therefore important. It was recommended consequently that the Government should publicly confirm that it will insist upon respect for the Constitution’s allocation of powers between the National Police Commission (NPC) and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and that, the IGP should play only a consultative role in the NPC’s exercise of its “powers of promotion, transfer, disciplinary control and dismissal.
These were similar to concerns expressed by another mandate holder of the United Nations in February 2008, namely the Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Manfred Novak (Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment Manfred Novak, Mission to Sri Lanka October 1-8 2007 (A/HRC/7/3/Add.6, 26 February 2008).
Frustration with official intransigence
These concerns remain to be effectively addressed by the Government. In the alternative, national and international frustration with official intransigence to address the core of the problem will continue, ultimately to the Government’s disadvantage. The question therefore is moot; does the gsovernment really WANT this state of affairs to continue?
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