EDITORIAL: The bad apples in the police service must go

In Summary

• In the past, under the one-party state, the police force, as it was then known, was ruthlessly used as an instrument of oppression.
• Police officers battered, tortured, maimed and killed. They exercised blind obedience to the authorities.
• Ordinary citizens’ rights were violated by the police but nobody raised a finger.
• Worse, they were unleashed like attack dogs on those perceived to be critical of the political system.

The perennial reports of rising cases of police brutality are deeply troubling and call for a long-lasting solution. In the latest report, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority records that there are some 2,000 cases of human-rights abuses perpetrated by the police and currently under investigation. Yet, out of that, only 67 have been conclusively investigated and taken to court for prosecution. Something is terribly wrong here.

Police brutality has been a subject of public discourse for years. In the past, under the one-party state, the police force, as it was then known, was ruthlessly used as an instrument of oppression. Police officers battered, tortured, maimed and killed. They exercised blind obedience to the authorities. Ordinary citizens’ rights were violated by the police but nobody raised a finger. Worse, they were unleashed like attack dogs on those perceived to be critical of the political system. Hardly were such cases investigated and prosecuted.

For this reason, police reforms were among the crucial issues that galvanised the clamour for constitutional change. The objective was to reorganise the police into an institution that served the public interest: providing security to the citizens and enforcing the rule of law. Rule of law precludes bribery, extortion, stealing and assaulting people.

Thus, the Constitution 2010 made elaborate provisions on police reforms, beginning with a change of name and recasting it as a police service to signify departure from the heartless force it had been known to be. The creation of the National Police Service as an independent institution was part of the strategy to reconstitute and reorient the entity to give it sheen. In line with that, senior police officers, just like judicial officers, were taken through an elaborate vetting process to determine their suitability, including temperament, integrity and professional ethics. Many failed and were bumped off.

Given this background, the expectation to date is that police officers should be people of integrity and high moral rectitude; those with total fidelity to professional ethos and commitment to public service. In recent years, the government created new administrative structures, revised the training and symbolically changed the uniforms to signal transformation of the institution. But these efforts have not paid dividend.

The fact that police officers continue to perpetrate extra-judicial acts demonstrates that the service is ill-disposed to change. But to accept that view would be defeatist. Which is why we are advocating administrative and political remedies.