The Police and Code of Ethics
by Lalith Allahakkoon
( June 21, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The police is to have a new Code of Ethics, we reported as our main story yesterday. According to Secretary of the National Police Commission Ariyadasa Cooray the present Code of Ethics is obsolete and relates to an entirely different era. He said the purpose of the new COE is to make the Police service a people friendly and efficient one that caters to the aspirations of the public.
“They (the police) should know how to be polite to the people. The COE will remind them of these obligations”, the Secretary said. He said; “all Police personnel will be required to read aloud the set of Code of Ethics and ratify it by placing their signatures on it. This will be done during the island wide launch (next month)”.
Code of Ethics is a much abused term these days. We saw a Code of Ethics being imposed on our MPs, only to be flouted even before the ink had dried on the paper, with our erstwhile people’s representatives engaging in a wrestling match on the floor of the House. Hopefully the Police Code of Ethics would not go the same way, what with our khakied gentry more disciplined and regimented by training than our gentlemen in kapati suit.
Be that as it may, a new Code of Ethics for the Police was long overdue, if that is going to change things positively. The police has certainly been receiving some bad publicity these days. Things were not helped, by the head of the STF, the elite police commando unit, threatening journalists in the open. Although the IGP did some damage control, the true face of the police, at least some segments of it, was revealed to the public. The COE should be binding on all officers, including the ranking ones, to maintain uniformity. Any breach of the COE too should be dealt with evenhandedly.
One would have thought that more than a Code of Ethics what our men in khaki needed was a Code of Conduct. We say this since discipline in the Police Department had taken nose dive in recent times and this was only to be expected. During the war years recruitment to the police was done dispensing with the rigid criteria adopted in the past, chiefly due to the manpower problem. The Police had to serve as an adjunct to the security forces and more often than not was thick in the fighting, especially the STF. Hence the authorities concerned could not afford to be fussy about whom they recruited. In the process some undesirables and even social dregs found their way into the police service.
What we have been witnessing from time to time, like for instance the Embilipitiya incident, is the fallout from this haphazard recruitment policy, though there was little choice in the matter. The authorities cannot be blamed for this. Desperate situations call for desperate action. Besides, the problem was not unique to the police. The three services too were affected. The large number of armed robberies and other criminal acts, post war, involving army deserters is example enough. It is time now to clean up the Augean stables and restore the Police to its former glory days when the khaki uniform was an object of awe and respect.
Certainly, as the Secretary implied, the police have lost the trust and confidence of the public. Today policemen are viewed with contempt and derision as individuals ready on the take and who do the bidding of politicians. They are also, unfairly we must say, demonized as government storm troopers deployed to breakup strikes with the use of maximum force. The challenge will be to break down this invisible wall the police have erected against the public in reaching out to them. The war years certainly played its part in brutalizing sections of the armed forces and the police is no exception. Before any Code of Ethics is introduced it will be useful to take steps to “humanise” our law enforcement officers that will go a long way in restoring the police to its position as an essentially civilian enforcement unit.
Measures also should be taken to lift the morale of the police officer. Today, as is well known, policemen are among the poorly paid public servants, considering the risk and dangers inherent in their profession. The salary scales of the Police Department needs revision and our police officers adequately remunerated considering that they too have families to maintain, children to educate and encounter all the problems common to the ordinary public servant. A satisfied, contended police officer will not only give of his best to the service but will be steeled enough to resist the temptations that come his way in the form of bribes and other blandishments. We are not yet privy to the contents of the Code of Ethics. But it should ideally be one where police officers are not called upon to do the bidding of politicians and be made obliged to carry out political orders.
( The writer is the editor in Chief of the Daily News, a daily newspaper based in Sri Lanka )
