{"id":61831,"date":"2016-12-27T11:18:25","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T18:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=61831"},"modified":"2016-12-27T11:19:18","modified_gmt":"2016-12-27T18:19:18","slug":"devolution-of-police-powers-to-provinces-a-recipe-for-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/12\/27\/devolution-of-police-powers-to-provinces-a-recipe-for-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Devolution of police powers to provinces: A recipe for disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Gamini Gunawardane Retd. Snr. DIG\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

December 26, 2016, 7:59 pm<\/span><\/p>\n

A proposal to devolve police Powers to the Provinces has been made again. Under the yahapalana government\u2019s constitutional reform project, the strict implementation of the provisions for devolution of police powers under the 13th Amendment and more is proposed by the Sub-Committee on Police, Law and Order, setting out how it would be done. The purport of this article is to warn that these recommendations are fraught with the danger of leading the country up a blind alley and causing further confusion in law and order maintenance. In short, it will spell disaster for the country.<\/p>\n

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Undermining the Unitary concept<\/h3>\n

Conceptually, the implementation of this provision under the 13th Amendment undermines the very essence of the unitary concept spelt out in Article 2 of the \u201978 Constitution, because unitary policing of the country is the main instrument that characterises the government\u2019s hold on the entire country. That devolution of power\/power sharing with the provinces can be done within a unitary state is mere hogwash. This is an exercise in deceiving the people.<\/p>\n

Although J. R. Jayewardene was coerced into adopting 13th Amendment in July 1987, he did not devolve police powers to the provinces because he knew it would mean the disintegration of the territorial integrity of this country. Nor did the other four Presidents who followed him. They all understood they would lose control of the country if they devolved the police powers to the arbitrarily demarcated provinces. For, law and order of the country is the primary responsibility of the President\/Parliament to the citizenry because the preservation of order is the pre-condition for a country to function smoothly. How could the President or Parliament possibly discharge this primary responsibility, when the police chiefs of the provinces report to the respective Chief Ministers of different political parties? This lack of cohesion is a sure prescription for disorder and havoc.<\/p>\n

This becomes critical in a crisis. Thus, although the government insists that the concept of the unitary character of the state will not be touched, the effective devolution of police powers as envisaged in the proposed constitutional reforms, demolishes the unitary foundation of the Constitution from within. The \u2018unitary\u2019 label will be a mere embellishment or sheer eyewash in such an eventuality.<\/p>\n

Demolition of Police Command structure<\/h3>\n

Whatever the criticisms there are against the police, the secret of their efficient functioning as an organization is due to their well-oiled unitary command structure that has held the department together for 150 years, and withstood three insurrections and a conspiracy to overthrow the government. The Police Department built on a fine conceptual and organisational foundation, with a sound accountability chain. It may be one main reason that it is consistently attacked by the political authority to undermine it. (The recent controversial telephone call to the IGP by a government big wig is the latest example.)<\/p>\n

Although the British colonial government arbitrarily divided country into provinces to suit their requirement thus paving the way for the present chaos, the establishment a unitary policing model benefited this country, because of its smallness and since it is an island of 25,000 sq. miles.<\/p>\n

The efficiency of the unitary command system was seen last year in the gang rape case of a schoolgirl in Kayts. The fleeing main accused, who lived in France, was caught at the Katunayake Airport overnight together with the video recording of the incident. How could this have been possible without a well co-ordinated unitary command structure in action?<\/p>\n

The Police command structure consists of two arms, Functional Command and Territorial Command under the IG Police, who is responsible for the effective policing of the whole country.<\/p>\n

Functional Command consists of the Administrative, Personnel, Logistics and the many specialised and technical support services, which is the machinery that runs the police organisation coherently.<\/p>\n

The Territorial Command is the crime fighting, order maintenance and people serving arm of the police. Because it is this arm that is outwardly visible and is flamboyant, politicians are salivating at the thought of gaining control over this arm. They do not understand that it is the smooth co-ordination of these two arms that delivers an efficient service. They do not understand that it is the efficacy of the unitary command structure that provides the functional support to the Territorial Command by arms such as 119, Automated Fingerprint Identification System, the Kennels Division, Riot Police and Command Control Room, STF and many others that provide silent support to the fighting fronts to facilitate efficient service delivery. This is how the total machinery works. These are all time tested methods of policing, taken for granted by politicians and others of their ilk without understanding how this system has worked for 150 years.<\/p>\n

When the British colonial government arbitrarily divided the country, first into five provinces and later to nine provinces for their administrative convenience, they maintained the police as a unitary structure to ensure an effective and uniform Law Enforcement System. Although we do not have to adopt the colonial methods that are inimical to our interests we must not throw away the baby with the bathwater.<\/p>\n

The Indians imposed a province based devolution system on us to appease Prabhakaran, to wean him away from terrorism, to offer an arrangement they thought might be acceptable to him. He rejected devolution lock, stock and barrel. What the Indians offered was modeled on their own quasi-federal system, which they mistakenly thought could be applicable in a country which is smaller than the smallest Indian state. Now that Prabhakaran is no more and there is no terrorism, it will be foolish to adapt a system designed to meet a situation that is no longer existent.<\/p>\n

Today, with the revolutionary development of road, railway and air transport systems, telephone and IT communication systems daily advancing at a rapid rate, crime and criminals and their methods are advancing equally fast. We are told that the world is daily shrinking into a \u2018global village\u2019. How can we now go back to an arrangement based on a provincial division made in 1833, when more decentralisation is the answer? There is no way now to micro manage systems when we are in an integrated whole. We need to plan for the future, not for the past.<\/p>\n

Under the proposed devolution concept, the National Police with IG as the head and 9 other Provincial Police organisations headed by a DIG each, will be reporting not to the IG but to the Chief Minister. The National Police are going to be only the Functional Command under the IG, and possibly the Metropolitan area police of Colombo. Under the latest recommendations, there is going to be 9 Police Ordinances and possibly 9 IGPs, all for this small country!<\/p>\n

Whenever the National Police need to do any work in the provinces, those officers will have to be in civil clothing. This arrangement removes the present Police Ordinance enabling provision to the effect that any police officer is empowered to function in any part of the country at any time. How would this facilitate the intelligence gathering function which is the mainstay of national security?<\/p>\n

National Police Commission<\/h3>\n

Besides, in this anomalous situation, what will be the function of the National Police Commission in the context of 9 Provincial Police Commissions in the country? The NPC will thus be looking over only the functional Command and the Metropolitan area police, which is not the purpose for which it was created. It will have no say over the provinces. And probably will be redundant.<\/p>\n

Provincial policing<\/h3>\n

Under these circumstances, policing the provinces will be the responsibility of each province. They will be in watertight compartments as per the political segregation. But, the real situation on the ground with the rapidly expanding physical communication, especially propelled by the super highway system etc. criminals and crime will be moving across the different provincial entities, while the police will be hamstrung as regards responding to \u2018cross-border\u2019 crime as every time they want to move into other provinces, they will have to obtain permission of the relevant Chief Ministers. Thus the criminals will have a field day enjoying the patronage of the local Chief Ministers! Thus, this chaotic situation in ineffective policing will be promoting lawlessness in the country, over which there will be no collective responsibility. The final victim will be the helpless citizen who is already in a mess.<\/p>\n

Thus, the dismantling of a well-functioning time tested organisation merely to accommodate the \u2018aspirations\u2019 of a bunch of politicians is a recipe for disaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Gamini Gunawardane Retd. Snr. DIG\u00a0Courtesy The Island December 26, 2016, 7:59 pm A proposal to devolve police Powers to the Provinces has been made again. Under the yahapalana government\u2019s constitutional reform project, the strict implementation of the provisions for devolution of police powers under the 13th Amendment and more is proposed by the Sub-Committee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}