Linden enquiry should address right to life, ministerial interference in police force -GHRA

The Guyana Human Rights Association believes the proposed Commission of Inquiry into the deaths in Linden resulting from the use of live rounds by the Police on July 18 should address right to life issues and seek ways to restrict ministerial interference in the Police Force.

“It is equally important that the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the Commission take into account longer term underlying problematic issues festering for decades within the Guyana Police Force which contributed to the events in Linden,” a release from the GHRA said yesterday.

It said that the COI is critical in getting to the bottom of who took the decisions and who pulled the triggers and to make recommendations regarding compensation to the victims and penalties for perpetrators.

The GHRA said that key among the priority issues that should be included in the TOR is reformulation of the right to life in Clause 138 of the Constitution. “Like all of the rights listed in this Section of the Constitution, the right to life falls well-short of the standards embodied in the international human rights Conventions which Guyana has signed and ratified,” the GHRA said. The body noted that the current formulations reflect the ambivalent attitude towards all rights which prevailed at the time the Constitution was promulgated in 1980 “and which have remained unreformed ever since.”

It added that rather than a Bill of Rights, the Guyana Constitution contains a set of rights which are all formulated according to a pattern in which usually the first statement sets out the right, “followed immediately by a series of clauses listing exceptions and qualifications that weaken and trivialize the original statement.”

The statement said, “In the case of the right to life as set out in Clause 138, this formula of giving with one hand and taking away with the other has a direct link with the behaviour of the GPF in Linden.”

It noted that key among the ‘taking away’ clauses is 138 (2) (b) which takes away protection of life from ’fleeing felons’.  “In other words if the police believe persons are guilty of a felony and the persons are running away,  being shot dead by the police is not a violation of the right to life,” the GHRA said.

It said that Clause 138 (2) (a) of the Constitution referring to “the defence of property” is another excuse for removing constitutional protection from the killing of whoever is considered to be the threat. “The standards set out in international human rights Conventions should be the starting-point for a re-formulated right to life.

The GHRA said that set in this context, police excesses in Linden border on becoming standard operating procedure. “It also throws more light on the problem of extra-judicial executions at the hands of members and rogue units of the Guyana Police Force in recent decades,” the GHRA statement said.

“The second major issue to be integrated into the TOR relates to political interference in the day-to-day business affairs of the police by the relevant Minister, namely Home Affairs. The legal justification for direct involvement in operational decisions is far wider than is needed or is healthy for a politically impartial police force,” the statement said.

The GHRA believes that it is impossible for the Minister not to be held responsible for episodes of excessive use of force such as recently occur-red in Linden given his deep involvement in the Police.

“Moreover, the level of political involvement in the Force envisaged by the Act reinforces the contention that the primary purpose of the GPF is not the protection of citizens, but the maintaining of civil order. At the same time, the removing of the Minister, without removing the source of the problem risks misleading the nation over the depth of the problem,” the body said.

It noted that the extent of political interference in the GPF is no cause for surprise both in terms of current legislation and history. It said that the GPF remains structurally the same militia force created by the colonial authorities over 170 years ago. “Like all such forces in the British Empire, the Guiana Militia was fashioned after the Royal Irish Constabulary, the original template for such occupying forces throughout the empire,” it said. “Apart from a name change the force remains the same : rigidly centralized decision-making, too many distinctions of rank, no career structures, no incentive to use discretion, barrack-type police-stations, rewarding brawn over brains – all  features of a military rather than a civilian-controlled body,” the GHRA said.

“Seen in these terms, the political inclination by the authorities to retain this colonial function of the police has been a constant feature of post-Independence Guyana, namely to quell political dissent. Reform of the Police Act is the starting point to insulate the GPF against political interference. Independence from the political administration will clear the ground for the catalogue of other reform required in order for the GPF to become the modern policing service the society requires. Until such reforms are set in train there can be no expectation that the chronically poor performance of the GPF in crime-fighting and its inclination for violent responses will improve,” said the GHRA in the statement.

It said that the proposed Commission of Enquiry is an appropriate place for the political dialogue as well as a technical review of policing. It noted that many international and local reports, the Symonds Report in particular, have highlighted the fact that attempting to graft technical improvements onto a politically-penetrated, institutionally-unreformed and unprofessional GPS is an expensive miscalculation. The cost of ignoring such recommendations is to be counted in terms of enormous local and international resources for which there is virtually nothing to show in return,” the GHRA said.

“Unfortunately to date, the past approaches by political parties to policing problems have been to identify individual culprits as ‘bad apples’ rather than recognize the need for institutional reform. The proposed Commission of Enquiry presents another opportunity for setting institutional reform in train,” the GHRA said in the statement.

The GHRA contended that since preventing repetition of the Linden killings should be a central goal of the Commission of Enquiry, “longer-term issues such as the right to life and political independence of the GPF are two, but by no means all, of the fundamental reforms which should be addressed.”