Police Order changes

A high level meeting chaired by President General Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad last week marked the end of the ambitions of the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) to reform the police in the direction of a professional, politically neutral, democratically controlled and people-friendly force, a description that runs contrary to how most citizens view the police at present.
If the performance of the police on the law and order front and combating terrorism is taken into account, the charge of being unprofessional, even incompetent, because of the free rein enjoyed through successive governments to remain a corrupt and brutal, dreaded factor in our society, finds sufficient evidence to make it stick.
The penchant of every government in our independent history, whether civilian or military, to use the police (and even the judiciary) to target its political opponents has been one of the unfortunate aspects of law enforcement. As to the problem of democratic control and being people-friendly, the less said the better.
It was precisely on these areas that the NRB proposals, which eventually found expression in the shape of the Police Order 2002, focused.
However, in the environment obtaining before the October 2002 general election, the NRB engaged with only one rung of the political ladder, since neither provincial nor national assemblies existed.
That rung was the local bodies system framed by none other than the NRB itself. The potential, and after October 2002 actual, stakeholders in the political system at the provincial and federal level were neither in the NRB loop, nor, as it later transpired, particularly enthusiastic about the NRB's idea of a police force free of executive control.
It may be recalled that in the past, before its abolition, the executive magistracy was one of the preferred tools of every incumbent government to control and use the police for politically partisan purposes.
The Police Order 2002 had left the provincial and federal politicos out of the control structure of the police.
This was the main base of the reservations expressed over the last two years by all the provincial governments about the Order.
The Islamabad meeting, held to review the reform process, has conceded political and executive control over the police in response to the provinces' objections and failure to take measures according to the 2002 Order.
The new approach will take the shape of the following changes to the Police Order: The reform process will be conducted in three phases. From April-May, ie before the budget, legal matters will be resolved and financial assessments to get allocations from the federal budget finalised.
The latter had remained one of the major bottlenecks to date to the implementation of the reforms. June-July will see training for members of the Public Safety and Complaints Commission and police on the interim rules for business of the new set-up.
In August-September, the rules of business will be finalised and taught to all stakeholders. At the district level, the police will be brought under the thumb of the Nazims, who will write the Annual Confidential Reports of district police officials.
MNAs and MPAs from the district will be members of the respective district public safety commission (PSC), intended as a check on the police.
The changed composition of these district PSCs will be one MNA and two MPAs, three members of the district council, and three independent members selected by a panel headed by a district and sessions judge.
The provincial Public Safety Commission and Police Complaints Authority proposed by the NRB will be merged into a provincial Public Safety and Complaints Commission, with double the number of treasury members as against the opposition, to be appointed by the chief minister/provincial government.
The Chief Justices have been excluded from the selection panel for independent members of the provincial safety commissions.
This panel will now consist of the provincial Ombudsman and the chairperson of the provincial PSC. An Implementation Committee to be headed by the NRB chairman has been set up to ensure the deadline for completion of the reorganisation by December 2004.
In essence the concessions to the demands of provincial and local political forces to be given control of the police are likely to exacerbate the politicisation of the police.
Postings and transfers of high police officers, an area always of interest to the politicians, has been placed under the chief ministers as the final authority.
President General Pervez Musharraf, whose approval for these changes was a constitutional necessity since the Police Order is included in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, has expediently bowed to vested interests amongst the politicians to virtually cut the ground from under the thrust of the Police Order to bring about a professional and non-partisan police force.
The President being an Army person knows the importance of a force having its own chain of command.
It is continuous training, upgradation of skills, promotion on merit and postings on basis of specialisation and planned career of an officer, that has a direct linkage with the effectiveness of a force. Same holds true for the police.
Since police has to constantly interact with the public and police excesses are a norm in our part of the world, it needs to have a system where civilian supervision and feedback on law enforcement personnel's conduct is essential.
It was therefore proposed to have Public Safety Commissions to provide the forum where policing programmes are to be discussed and finalised in every district.
The political representative as well nominees from the civil society on the commissions have to determine the priorities for the force in every district. In some cases, such as a city, the top priority could be to handling of the traffic on the roads while in other cases it could be dacoities.
These priorities would determine the allocation of funds and could be different for various areas.
On the other hand, the Complaints Commission is meant to provide a door to the public to knock when a police station does not respond to their complaint, ie in case of refusal to register an FIR.
A necessary corollary, to the Commission is the establishment of a Citizen Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) in every district.
CPLC is meant to co-ordinate, assist and provide feedback to the Complaints Commission which is an essential element in good governance. Therefore, the decision to merge the Safety and Complaints Commissions is erroneous. The two have different roles to perform. Also the challenges facing them are so loaded that they need to have different secretariats.
It is also essential that staff in these secretariats are not from the police force so that a nexus is not established. We know that means additional expense. But the foremost duty of any government is to protect the life, honour and property of every citizen. Success comes with prevention rather than reaction to every law infringement.
Funding for induction, training and equipping the police force must take precedence over other governmental responsibilities. Creating an environment of safety automatically pays for itself with higher investment resulting in collection of more taxes.
The fears and apprehensions of politicising the police force by giving powers to the elected representatives in the selection and postings of police officers, are based on the sad history of partisan performance of our political elite to victimise opponents and use the force to further their own interests. It is the duty of the civil city to keep a check on them.
This comes from a democratic dispensation and depoliticising of the law enforcement as well as the judicial system.