By Tanwir Naqvi in Dawn Op-Ed
The writer was the founding chairman of the National Reconstruction Bureau and pioneered the reconstruction of the institutions of state during the period 2000-2002.
The writer was the founding chairman of the National Reconstruction Bureau and pioneered the reconstruction of the institutions of state during the period 2000-2002.
A TUMULTUOUS month ago, Sindh was pushed back a century and a half to a system of bureaucratic rule through antiquated laws that the British had used for ruling their colonies for two centuries.
The motive of Sindh’s politico-bureaucratic elite for taking this regressive action obviously was to facilitate and perpetuate arbitrary rule over their own people. The Police Act 1861 remaining intact makes it evident that this remains the motive, despite the misleading impression being given that by disbanding the divisions and their commissioners the local government system under the SLGO has replaced the so-called commissionerate system introduced a month ago. This makes it imperative for people to acquire a clear awareness of what had necessitated its replacement a decade ago with the Police Order 2002 and its integration with the Local Government Ordinances 2001.
The colonial system was built around extreme centralisation of authority under six separate laws in one officer who had four titles — collector (of land revenue), district magistrate, deputy commissioner, and controller of local governments — and the concentration of 10 management functions spread across the political, administrative and criminal justice spectrum of governance.
The system’s colonial character was founded on the empowerment of a single officer, the district magistrate, with administrative authority along with the judicial authority to even hold trials in his criminal court, thus making him the arraigner and the prosecution, as well as the judge and the jury in his court. The 1973 constitution did away with this anti-people monstrosity, but allowed five years for the judicial function to be withdrawn from the executive magistracy.However, it took nearly three decades to get implemented through the Local Government Ordinances 2001 and the Police Order 2002. Violations of the constitution inherent in restoring this executive magistracy, partially or wholly today, pose a stark challenge to our independent judiciary.
The police, headed by the superintendent of police of the district, functioned under the Police Act 1861 for performing three core functions: maintenance of public order; investigation of crime; and prosecution of criminals in courts of law. The ethos of the police under this law was not of policing the district as a service to the people; instead, the police was meant for protecting the colonial state and pro-state people against opponents of the state. Selective justice through tyrannical behaviour was thus inherent to the system.
The Police Rules 1934 placed the police under the ‘general supervision and control’ of the district magistrate. Yet when police excess called for judicial enquiry, the provincial government deputed the district magistrate to conduct it, despite the latter being a party to it as the boss of the police. This, in essence, is the conflict-of-interest ridden
criminal justice system, deliberately built to respond to political requirements as opposed to the needs of justice, which the Sindh government has chosen to reintroduce.This DC-SP based system of rule was all that the pre-Independence governments considered necessary for governance; because their aim was ensuring absolute control over the people, and the maintenance of public order, both mainly in pursuit of the twin colonial interests of maximising production, and optimising collection of revenue for its repatriation to their mother country.
The Devolution Plan sought to replace this system with an integrated governance system based on two new laws: the provincial Local Government Ordinances 2001 to enable 99 per cent of the people to solve 99 per cent of their problems within the district; while the federal Police Order 2002 laid the foundation for establishing a pro-people criminal justice and policing system. Good governance is possible only through cohesive functioning of these two laws.
The Police Order 2002 subordinates the district police directly to the district nazim for all policing functions except the internal administration of the police, investigation of crime and the prosecution of criminals in courts of law. Very deliberately, authority over the police was not decentralised to any other political leader or bureaucrat in the local government. To infuse professionalism in the planning of all policing functions, Police Order 2002 requires the district police officer to develop a formal policing plan every year for approval by the district nazim.
Taking away the ‘general supervision and control’ over the police from the district magistrate, it vests the police directly with the responsibility of protecting the state and its citizens against crime, as a service to the people, and gives it the authority to measure up to its new role. To balance this autonomy of the district police, and the authority of the district nazim over the police, the Police Order 2002 created and tasked public safety commissions at the district and provincial levels to prevent misuse of the police by the district nazim, as well as misuse of authority by the police itself. The law requires these civil society institutions to be manned by a combination of meticulously selected citizens of eminence and integrity, and elected representatives at both levels.
To promote specialisation, the law de-concentrates the three prime functions of the police by leaving just the maintenance of public order with the main elements of the district police; and creating a separate department within the police to handle investigation of crime; while a separate prosecution department was created in each provincial government for the prosecution of criminals in courts of law. But to ensure that all district functionaries dealing with functions relating to crime and criminals, including prisons and the district courts, function harmoniously, a criminal justice coordination committee, headed by the sessions judge of the district was brought into being.
For internal administration the police was placed under its own district and provincial police officers, but continued to be answerable to the judiciary. Yet the province was given a professional police complaints authority to discipline police functionaries who were reported upon by the public safety commissions for neglect or excess in the performance of their policing functions.
The Police Order also created independent police forces and public safety commissions for each city district, so as to enable the heads of the provincial police to focus on the host of common districts of the province without the massive distraction that crime in the populous city districts causes.
The bureaucracy supported by the political elite introduced regressive amendments to the law and impeded its implementation for keeping alive the case for restoring the executive magistracy and bureaucratic control over the police.The police itself was not assertive enough to precipitate the implementation of the Police Order despite the support of some progressive elements from among the politico-bureaucratic elite. Coupled with insufficient investment in the police during a decade of rising terror-related crime, this dynamics kept the mutilated law partially implemented leaving the police with its traditional ungainly image largely unchanged.
For the police to emerge as a people-and-state-friendly governance institution, replacing the Police Act 1861 with the Police Order 2002, along with restoring this law and the Local Government Ordinances 2001 to their original state, followed by their prompt and thorough implementation, are the prime needs of durable good governance through a pro-people democracy.Given the wisdom and the will to weave a prosperous future for the people, Sindh can now lead the nation towards the attainment of this goal.
Contd in Next Part (http://zulfiqarshaikh.blogspot.com/2011/08/devolution-saviour-ii-devolution.html)
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