Policing and human rights after the conflict
by Brice Dickson
From: A farewell to arms? From 'long war' to long peace in Northern Ireland edited by Michael Cox, Adrian Guelke and Fiona Stephen
Independent Commission on Policing
Few human rights activists would have dared to predict that the Patten Report would give as much prominence as it did to human rights. Chapter 4 is devoted to the concept and makes seven recommendations designed to entrench a human rights culture in the proposed Northern Ireland Police Service. The Reports calls for 'a comprehensive programme of action to focus policing in Northern Ireland on a human rights-based approach' (para 4.6) it says this should be the philosophy of policing and inspire everything that a police service does; it wants every officers to perceive his or her job in terms of the protection of human rights (para 4-13). The Report then becomes more specific by recommending that a fresh oath 9 should be taken by all new and existing police officers, one which expresses an explicit commitment to upholding human rights (para 4-7); it calls for a new Code of Ethics, integrating the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into police practice (para4.8); moreover, all codes of practice on aspects of policing should be strictly in accordance with the ECHR (para 4.8). All police officers, and police civilians, should be trained (and updated as required) in the fundamental principles and standards of human rights and the practical implications for policing, and the human rights dimension should be integrated into every module of police training (para 4.9). Awareness of human rights issues and respect for human rights in the performance of duty is to be an important element in the appraisal of police officers (para 4.10). At a more general level, Patten proposes that a human rights legal expert should be appointed to the staff of the police legal services (para 4.11) and that the performance of the police as a whole with regard to human rights should be closely monitored by the new Policing Board, which is to replaced the largely discredited - because of its lack of powers - Police Authority (para4.12)
Other chapters in the Report are peppered with references to human rights. The non-political members of the Policing Board should include someone from the field of human rights (para6.12) new legislation on covert policing should comply with the ECHR (para6.43) and as a matter of priority all members of the police service should be instructed in the implications of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 and of the Human Rights Act 1998 the Act which, from 2 October 2000, makes the ECHR part of the law throughout the UK (para 16.21).
The Government has accepted that all new police officers should take a new police oath (and is considering extending this to new officers throughout the UK) but is not proposing that already attested officers should have to do so - the secretary of state cites 'significant' (but unspecified) legal difficulties for this decision.10. All officers are however to receive human rights training and will be required to behave in accordance with a statutory code of ethics. But much more important than the rhetoric of human rights is the practice thereof. In order to assess whether the Report, and the government's response to it, will ensure that the practice of policing adheres to appropriate human rights standards, we need to consider aspects of the Report in more detail. We will deal with three of these: eligibility for the new service, the accountability of the service and the legal powers of the service.
Eligibility
On eligibility, Patten notes that to date the RUC has had stricter criteria for admission than other police services; relatively minor police records have disqualified applicants. No actual figures, however, are provided on how many applicants are turned down on this basis. The Commission recommends that the admission criteria should be relaxed a little:
We emphatically do not suggest that people with serious criminal or terrorist
backgrounds should be considered for police service, but we do recommend
that young people should not be automatically disqualified for relatively
minor criminal offences, particularly if they have since had a number of
years without further transgressions, and that the criteria on this aspect
of eligibility should be the same as those in the rest of the United Kingdom.
We also recommend that there should be a procedure for appeal to the Police
Ombudsman against disqualification of candidates (para15.13). |
