Is the Sri Lanka Police at a crossroads: either forward, toward a newly disciplined and diligently administered force or backward, toward a condition of decay and failure of duty?
None other than the Inspector General of Police is in the centre of controversy today over the proper administration of the force and the enforcement of law and order in compliance with the Constitution and the Police Ordinance.
While there are numerous allegations against the current IGP, the most serious issue is that which has been raised by the very body of State to which he is accountable –the National Police Commission. The National Police Commission has formally complained that the incumbent IGP has failed to implement a number of important recommendations regarding the Police Force made by the Commission.
They include serious omissions relating to the promotion of a Senior Superintendent of Police, promotions of over a hundred officers whose careers had suffered from political victimisation, the arbitrary removal of an Officer-in-Charge of a provincial station, a similar arbitrary suspension from the duties of an officer supervising a key headquarters division and, other administrative irregularities.
How does a country discipline one of its higher officers of State? Is it by a political kangaroo court in the Rajapaksa style or, by an orderly and meticulous process of inquiry and indictment?
The Sri Lanka Police is one of the earliest modern police forces to be established in Asia. The current IGP is the 34th since the post was first created in 1866. Our Police Force counts over 150 years of proud service to Sri Lankan society, maintaining law and order throughout an island history as we transited from colonial rule to a Republic and social modernity. It has been a period of service to the nation punctuated by periods of peace and stability as well as challenges of extreme social violence, waves of bloody insurgency and recurring natural disasters.
Nonetheless, the vagaries of political caprice by various autocratic rulers, politically empowered corrupt elements and, the demoralising manipulation of officer careers by abusers of governmental power have all served to deform our ‘guardians of the law’ to a degree that there have been times when citizens feared to even enter a police station.
Thankfully, the current government is endeavouring to resuscitate a nation-state that reeked with despotism, violence and perfidy during the previous regime. Today, with the Police Force brought under a Ministry of Law & Order, the old devils of repressive force at the behest of politicos and police officers themselves, are giving way, albeit slowly, to a revival of a Force that serves the citizen rather than coerces and oppresses.
The Inspector General of Police, especially the first to be formally appointed through our newly democratised governance mechanism of the Constitutional Council, must take the lead in pushing through this institutional transformation, this renaissance of decency long sought by the citizenry.
The Government has now set in a process of rigorous investigation of the failures of the IGP and any complicit subordinates and the nation will watch, somewhat impatiently for discipline to be fully enforced in a manner that is best for the Force and for the society it protects.
The assessment of the functioning of a high officer of the State is one that should only be done in careful accordance with the law and correct procedure. The facts of the omissions and their resultant negative impacts must be assessed fairly and rigorously.
If officers must be removed, that removal must be done in the proper manner and not in a manner that causes humiliation or glosses over the seriousness of the failures.
Typically, some elements of the Opposition, namely, the Joint Opposition group, is vociferous in its cry for blood – very much in the style those same JO politicos exhibited during their tenure of government in the last regime. For them, the predicament of the Police Force and its high command is merely an opportunity to undermine the current government.
For the JO, it is not a moment of testing the newly created mechanisms of democratic governance – the Police Commission and the Constitutional Council – which now play key roles in the appointment and supervision of high state officials such as, the IGP. Perhaps, the JO politicos have become so used to their old style of crude and corrupt governance that they are unable to adopt the new style of careful protocols and responsible and inclusive decision-making ushered in by the current government.
The country awaits swift and rigorous action to address the mess that the Police Force is in today due to the failure of the command echelon to responsibly implement the reforms and institutional renewal that the Government has initiated.