By Allieu Sahid Tunkara
In the face of wide public outcry over the conduct of members of the Sierra Leone Police and the Police Complaints, Discipline and Internal Investigations Department (SLP/CDIID) which was set up to check the force, the government thought it fit to set up the Independent Police Complaints Board (IPCB) to handle issues relating to police discipline.
The IPCB consists of several stakeholders including its chairman Valentine Collier, charged with the main responsibility of ensuring professionalism within the police force, thereby ensuring a good working relationship between the community and the police. The board, when launched, will work independently. But it would still recognise the CDIID as SLP internal regulation which has the mandate to enforce the Police Discipline Regulations of 2001.
In a seminar held at the Hill Valley Hotel in Freetown last week, Sean Tait, a South African graduate in Criminology from the African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum (AFCOM) informed the audience that the concept of transparency and accountability were central to policing.
He made reference to the police services in South Africa and Nigeria which emerged from the apartheid political system and military rule respectively. Mr Tait described policing oversight as a difficult task as it is “riddled with complexities.”
He further disclosed that the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights had extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on prison conditions including police institutions, adding that the commission was poised to know how their priorities were met in terms of the allocation of resources to these departments.
Mr Tait allayed fears that the resolution of 2006 passed by the AFCOM, calling for policing oversight to be seen as a “punitive measure” but should be seen as one that demands consequences for what someone has done.”
Speaking on behalf of members of the board, the chairman of the IPCB, Valentine Collier, said although progress had been made in policing after the 11- year civil war, surveys revealed that police conduct still posed a challenge to modern policing.
The ICPB chair reiterated the statement made by President Ernest Bai Koroma regarding the enhancement of the police institution which, he said, resonated well with the United Nations policy statement of “No development without security and no security without development.”
In carrying out its mandate as provided for in the Independent Police Complaints Board Regulations, No 11 of 2013, the IPCB would operate at arm’s length with the Sierra Leone Police and other organs of government.
“The main areas of priority which the IPCB will look into are offences relating to the use of excessive police force and deaths of suspects in police custody,” Mr Collier said. He assured the public that “best practice” within the Commonwealth indicated that oversight function can address systemic police internal discipline and that the IPCB would execute its mandate on a principle of “proactiveness” to track down police abuses and complaints.
He further disclosed that the Security Sector Reform Project of the UNDP strongly supports the establishment of IPCB, adding that November last year, the UNDP contacted the AFCOM to operationalise the IPCB but that the outbreak of the Ebola virus disease could not allow the consultant to stay in the country.
In spite of the challenge of the epidemic, he said, the IPCB, in collaboration with AFCOM, had developed broad standard operating procedures focused on issues of complaint, investigation and research.
The Security Sector Adviser for the Association for Security and Justice Programme, Dr Ibrahim Bangura, stated that his organisation had been working in the country to promote democratic policing. “The main aim of the IPCB is to make sure that it promotes complementarity and avoid duplicity,” Dr Bangura said.
The UNDP representative Louise Aen assured members of the board of its support to operationalise the IPCB. She said building effective institutions for the security of Sierra Leone was part of the security agenda of the United Nations Development Programme which would be aligned with the government`s Agenda for Prosperity.
(C) Politico Online 05/10/15
