Policing and human rights after the conflict
by Brice Dickson
Police powers
The controversy over how to formulate the legal accountability of the police in Northern Ireland is perhaps best examined within the context of the exercise of two contentious police powers - the power to use firearms and the power to use plastic bullets. 22 Surprisingly, Patten, says next to nothing about the use of firearms (paras 8.17-8.20)merely that there should be a periodic review of whether it is possible to move towards a routinely unarmed police service. He does not point to the apparent inconsistency between the law in Northern Ireland on when police officers can use lethal force and the law as stated in the ECHR 23. On plastic bullets he concludes that they should not be immediately withdrawn but that better controls should be placed on their use, that research should be conducted to find a more acceptable alternative and that a range of other public order equipment should be supplied to the police so that a commander has more options to choose from. While there is room for arguing that, given the police's inadequate defences to petrol bombs, plastic bullets must be retained as a weapon of last resort in such situations, there is no defence for the omission in Patten of any reference to the various international standards on the use of firearms. The UN's Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, adopted by the UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in 1990, is particularly apposite here, but also relevant are the UN's Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, a set of recommendations issued by the Economic and Social Council in 1989. Basic Principle 9 of the 1990 document, for example, specifies that 'intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life', while Principle 11 of the 1989 document states that:
In cases in which the established investigative procedures are inadequate because of lack of expertise or impartiality, because of the importance of the matter or because of the apparent existence of a pattern of abuse, and in cases where there are complaints from the family of the victim about these inadequacies or other substantial reasons, Government shall pursue investigations through an independent commission of inquiry or similar procedure.
This is an instance where, despite all the fine talk in the Patten Report about the need to commit the police service to human rights, there is a lack of detail as to what exactly this needs to entail in practice. The Commission might also have referred to recent decisions of the European Court of Human Rights which hold that states are obliged not just not to take life, but also to thoroughly investigate the taking of life. 24. The people of Northern Ireland need to be reassured that the new Northern Ireland Police Service will comply fully with that obligation.
It is regretted that the Patten Report does not contain a deeper analysis of the impact of the emergency powers on policing practices in Northern Ireland. 25. Even without delving into alleged past abuses of those laws, the Commission could have examined the potential in the current emergency laws for abuse and for infection of the prevailing police culture. There is an undeniable link between perceptions of the RUC within the nationalist community and the fact that that community has been affected also, but not to the same extent, either quantitatively or, arguably, qualitatively. Patten does recommend the closure of the holding centres in Northern Ireland, which have no statutory basis anyway (para 8.15)26 and the keeping of records for all stops and searches and other such actions taken under emergency laws. It is unfortunate that the Report does not recommend the repeal or at any rate the suspension, of the remainder of the emergency laws. To maintain them during a period of ceasefires, even ones as tenuous as those currently in place, is quite possibly a breach of Article 15 of the ECHR which tolerates such laws only if there is 'a public emergency threatening the life of the nation'. Very regrettably, the government's Terrorism Bill, currently before Parliament at the time of writing, provides for the continuation of most of the emergency powers in Northern Ireland indefinitely. In its response to the Patten Report the government made no concessions in this regard; indeed it asserted that there would be no question of rushing forward with changes to the style of policing or the size of the service 'in the absence of a stable security environment' (as assessed by the Chief Constable.)27.
9. The Patten Report refers to an oath but in fact police officers make a declaration.
10. HC Debates, 19 January 2000, Col 846. |
