Daily Times

Some serious incidents like Model Town’s dreadful carnage, fake and cruel encounter of CTD near Sahiwal, frequent incidents of torture killing of citizens in police custody in the recent past, and imposing ban on entering a police station with a mobile phone, have depicted the image of police as a symbol of legal ‘illegal-ism’. As evident from the Human Right Watch Survey Report: 2016, the Pakistan police, on the whole, is considered the most abusive, corrupt and unaccountable institution of the state. It has a bad reputation of running illegal torture cells, arresting innocent persons, killing people in fake encounters, registering false cases, and insulting, even abusing, poor complainants.

There is a pervasive fear of the police among the general public, and at times, people have to seek the help of some paid police agent to get their FIR registered. The starting point of our justice system with corruption is a bitter reality well known to our rulers, judges, media and civil society organisations.

Pakistan inherited the police system from the British. Colonies’ policing culture was brutal and despotic in nature. In the British India, police was modelled on line of the Royal Irish Constabulary. The Indian Police Act 1861 was passed, on the face of it, to organise the police and to make it a more efficient institution, but the real intent was the perpetuation of colonial rule. Pakistan promulgated the Police Order 2002 by repealing the Act of 1861. The objective in the Preamble is to create a police service that is professional, service-oriented and accountable to the people, and thus a new legal framework has been formulated with some of the following new features:

Separation of police from magistracy

Public accountability of police

Reduction of political influence

But ground realities vis-à-vis the stated objectives/features of this new law are contradictory.

It has been stated that in the new law a clear and practical separation of police from the magistracy has taken place. It is a misleading notion because police can never be separated from magistracy; there is only a change of agency to exercise those magisterial powers. Now instead of the district magistracy under the district magistrate, they have to collaborate with the district judiciary. Police officials are happy with this arrangement as it suits them because the service style and environment of district judiciary is that of an isolation that hampers them from looking beyond the scope of their functional parameters.

The Criminal Justice System of Pakistan starts with the registration of an FIR. Corruption lies at the backbone of all malpractices from beginning to submission of a challan

It is claimed that in the new law the public accountability has been based on the Japanese model of community policing. For this purpose, the institutions of public safety and police complaints commissions were to be constituted. The fact is that the Police Order 2002 neither envisages community policing nor is its accountability system based on the Japanese model. Despite being a smaller country in terms of area and population, Japan has established 48 public safety commissions including a national public safety commission to regulate their police. The national public safety commission of Japan has only five members along with a chairperson. Other members include a journalist, an economist/professor, a diplomat and a leading entrepreneur. All these five members and the chairperson are appointed with the consent of both houses of parliament. It is an independent body and has the authority to appoint or dismiss senior police officers. Furthermore, Japan is divided into 47 prefectures. Each prefecture has its own independent public safety commission to provide citizen oversight for police activities. There are only three members in an ordinary prefecture and five in urban prefectures. All members of a prefectural public safety commission along with its chairperson are appointed with the consent of the prefectural assembly. Except senior police officers of national cadre, the prefectural public safety commission has full powers for the appointment and dismissal of all other officials. This is the real concept and practice of community policing, whereas our police officers generally use the term ‘community policing’ with self-opinionated interpretation and superficial comprehension of the concept.

Public safety commissions at national, provincial and district levels, envisaged in the Police Order 2002, have cumbersome and crowded composition, hampering an effective oversight and monitoring mechanism for them. In the first place, these proposed commissions have not been properly established, and secondly, unlike their Japanese counterparts, these are nothing but eyewash with no authority.

Instead of blaming politicians for interfering and clogging the performance of police, senior police authorities should have demonstrated some positive efforts to deliver at least in the space that is always available to public functionaries. There are certain examples of some senior police officers who have earned respect of the general public for focusing on protecting and serving the common man instead of developing relations with the political and economic elite. The general public still holds their tenures in high esteem.

Whenever there is an effort to initiate reforms in the police system of Pakistan, it gives rise to visible or invisible warlike moves between the serving and retired officers of PAS and PSP. This brawl is sometimes noisy and sometimes silent but it has caused much damage to the existing administrative system of the country. Unfortunately, the administrative system of Pakistan has become hostage to the whims and wishes of these two rival service groups of the country at the cost of national interest that should have been their prime objective. A common Pakistani citizen, from urban or rural area, is more comfortable to approach a deputy commissioner than a district session judge or district police officer for redressal of his grievances. Even educated people have an element of fear while visiting a police formation to seek help in genuine problems. Keeping in view the ground realities a working relationship between police and Pakistan administrative service at district level would be beneficial for the general public.

The Criminal Justice System of Pakistan starts with the registration of an FIR. Corruption lies at the backbone of all malpractices from beginning to submission of a challan. During the Musharraf regime, salaries of police officials were doubled, but it did not bring about any improvement in the system. According to a Crisis Group Asia report, the Police Order 2002 has made the force even more top heavy by further weakening the police station’s operational independence and efficacy. It has increased senior police posts by 300 percent, which consumes more than 15 percent of the police budget. A police station is the focal point of police-public relationship. The top-level police authorities should realise that it is the deep-rooted corruption at police station level that has been a major cause of public mistrust in police. A survey by the Transparency International(2011)indicates that police has become hostage in the hands of the feudal, political and economic elite for torturing and registering false cases against innocent people.

Why is there a wide gap between a common man and a constable of a police station? Is it intentional on the part of our policy makers, or because it suits the senior echelons of the police department? Whatever the case may be, time has come to transform the police of Pakistan from a savage to a benign shadow of law.

The writer is a retired civil servant of PAS, an advocate of the Lahore High Court