Low Graphics Site
 
 
 
 
 
 
|
|
|
|
April 8, 2002
|
Monday
|
Muharram 24, 1423
|
Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
Police act anomalies
Capital’s Nazim
Traffic accidents & society
Police act anomalies
REJECTING as many as 350 objections raised by the provinces and federal ministries to the proposed police act, the National Reconstruction Bureau has recommended its promulgation. This negates the very purpose of the presidential order, which had directed the NRB to satisfy the provinces and the ministries before the act became a law. Most objections had to do with fears that the act gave unbridled powers to the police to infringe on citizens’ civil rights. A four-member team, of whom only one was an NRB consultant and three were career police officers, drafted the controversial act. Human rights groups and lawyers from across the country have opposed the proposed act in its existing form. It is disquieting to note that the NRB’s behaviour tended to show a touch of arrogance in refusing to listen to the provincial governments, which would be responsible for implementing the proposed act — law and order being a provincial subject.
Addressing some of the contentions raised by concerned citizens, the president — pending the promulgation of the revised police act — had amended the Police Act of 1861 in December last. The amendment empowered the district Nazim to visit a police station and to order a police officer to set a wrongfully detained suspect free. The idea was to set the tone for the proposed law, and allay the misgivings by creating some balance of power between the writs of an elected Nazim and the police. The amendment also bound the district police officer to proceed against a police officer for wrongful conduct, if a Nazim so complained. For his part, the Nazim was restrained from interfering in matters pertaining to police administration and its function of prosecution. In case there was a dispute between a DPO and a Nazim, the district public safety commission’s writ were to prevail. The provincial public safety commissions were to play the role of a watchdog over those at the district level, and any further disputes could be referred to these. It was despite these balancing acts that the provinces still filed 350 objections, seeking a further reduction in the powers of the police under the proposed law, which the NRB refused to entertain.
It seems it was left to the drafters of the act whom to consult and whom to ignore, even if those ignored deserved to be consulted. The judiciary, for one, was not made part of any known consultations. The objections raised by the provinces, the establishment and interior ministry and the home departments, thus, represented the concerns articulated by professional bodies and the citizenry at large. If the reports that the new act will empower the police to enter people’s homes and arrest suspects without a warrant or detain citizens for 24 hours “because they refused to obey a police order” are correct, then the presidential amendments to the act do not address these issues. For, by the time a Nazim comes t
|