The second draft Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) Bill which has been prepared by the Attorney-General’s Chambers should be made public to allow for public feedback and consultation.
The Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Musa Hassan, has said that the police is satisfied with the draft IPCMC bill prepared by the Attorney-General’s Chambers as it contained some of the proposals presented by the police.
He said the police is not opposed to an IPCMC but wanted a fair procedure so that there is no victimization of the police.
Malaysians welcome the change-of-heart of the police on the IPCMC issue, backing down from its original stand of total opposition.
Malaysians can accept and agree with Musa that when the IPCMC is formed, no one, including the police, should be victimized by its operation and function.
As the whole purpose of an IPCMC is to uphold justice, it would be a travesty of justice to create new victims or to countenance new injustices to be perpetrated under the IPCMC regime.
The real stand of the police on the IPCMC still await full clarification, as the test of the pudding is in the eating or in the passage of the IPCMC legislation.
As the Attorney-General’s draft IPCMC bill has not been made public, no one knows whether it has kept to the spirit of the key recommendation of the Police Royal Commission for the establishment of an independent external oversight mechanism to check police abuses of powers, misconduct and negligence in order to create an efficient, incorruptible, professional world-class police service which could keep crime low, eradicate corruption in the police service and uphold human rights.
No one knows how far the second draft IPCMC bill prepared by the Attorney-General differed from the first draft Bill prepared and published by the Police Royal Commission.
What is important is that the essence of the recommendation to have an independent external oversight mechanism to effectively check on police abuses should not be compromised in any manner.
There are two reasons why there should be a greater sense of urgency on the part of the government and the police to get the IPCMC established without any more procrastination, viz:
- it is more than a year since the expiry of the time-line for the establishment of the IPCMC as recommended by the Police Royal Commission — which was by May 2006; and
- public confidence in the ability of the police to perform its most elementary duty to protect citizens from crime is even lower than before the establishment of the Police Royal Commission as a result of the galloping crime index with Malaysians feeling more unsafe about their personal safety and that of their loved ones as compared to some four years ago.