by Mr Umar Farooq Baloch 19 July 2023
The British colonial era that Pakistan’s bureaucracy is bestowed with today, confers a foundational base of our contemporary police force. There was a centralized system of law and order when police were given protocol and lied on top of the hierarchy level. With broad power to maintain law and order within communities and enforce the law, they were treated with much respect. The Police Act of 1861 was passed by the British-Indian colonial government for an altogether different set of social, administrative and political realities than what the country faces today. That model was designed for colonial power’s interests instead of protecting native and independent nation as well as the protection of Human Rights in Pakistan.
Upon independence in 1947, Pakistan had to adopt the same 1861’s framework of laws and practices for the department of Police due to lack of resources. Realizing the nature of this particular model, efforts to bring around fundamental reforms were made as early as 1948 on the directions of Governor General Muhammad Ali Jinnah, earlier gave in August 1947, to bring about a perceptible change on the lines of Irish-type colonial model (now Sindh police) for establishing a modern police force for the city of Karachi. Unfortunately, first this bill never yielded any fruit due to amalgamation of various bureaucratic reasons; like till date its unknown why Legal Advisor to the Governor General made certain ‘minor corrections’ on the authentic copy of the bill. Later, it was returned to the office of Governor Sindh for resubmission in February 1948 when the Sindh assembly had passed the bill and only signature of the Governor General were required to make it into law. Similarly, a commission formed for police reforms that went to India to study Bombay police model and this effort never presented its recommendations in 1960-61.
Another attempt to reforms, especially to depoliticize police was made in 1985 by then Prime Minister Junejo who established police committee to examine, inter alia, whether the existing police system based on Police Act of 1861 was capable of meeting the growing law and order challenges. The committee evaluated the possible introduction of system of Metropolitan Police System and after prolonged deliberations, Committee declared that present system was ‘outdated’ and it was recommended that fundamental restructuring, along with introduction of Metropolitan Police System to be implemented, particularly, in all cities with a population of over 500,000. Once again the status quo prevailed, and the government of PM Junejo was dismissed before the implementation of his mission that could have been applied as Metropolitan Policing, to replace 1861 Police model. Essentially, such doctrines served the interests of political elite of the country, who aimed to use the police force for their political aims to upkeep their influence over the system rather prioritizing the needs to maintain law and order as well as protection of Human Rights of general public.
The policing in Pakistan faces numerous challenges; overshadowed with the ability to effectively maintain and enforce the rule of law to protect the nation. Extreme political influences are one of the fundamental causes to put forth the department into a widespread criticism, inefficiency and recurring disrespect among the masses with recurring attempts of Human Rights violations. The last decade of the 20th century particularly witnessed an almost complete collapse of the existing law and order apparatus, thanks mainly, to reckless interference in vital aspects of police administration by the ‘persons of influence’ and use of force according to the wish list of political elite to sabotage the Human Rights of Pakistani citizens.
After a prolonged delay for more than 50 years, two significant police reforms were introduced during the military rule of General Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. These were Police Order 2002 and the National Police Bureau of Ordinance 2002. Both reforms were significant as they focused on the modernization of the police department, depoliticizing and giving complete professional and operational autonomy to police, long criticized for lack of accountability and professionalism.
At present, performance of Police from First Information Report (FIR) to postmortem of evidence is badly influenced by political actors and concludes into desired influence of political elite. In this way, transparency, evidence, investigation process of each case has shattered public trust and individual’s right to the justice. Unfortunately, due to pressures from external actors, police officials are mostly found harassing the innocent while supporting the guilty to split evidence and purging facts in investigation process, rather focusing on the code of conduct.
On the other hand, politicized recruitments; transfers, postings and particularly promotions are dire miseries of police department itself. Hiring of lower staff like constables, sub-inspectors and inspectors started in early 90s under the high political influences instead following any criteria or testing system. On officer’s level, nepotism in transfer / posting has also been deteriorating the working and efficiency of entire department and the concerned official maneuvers the authority, within their jurisdiction and beyond, according to the interest of political elite.
Lack of interest in legislation, decision making (role of executive) whereas non-implementation of police order 2002 and failure of police reform strategies are fine examples of extreme political influences from the past. Moreover, the severity of corruption in police department is the fruit of this nexus from where the culture of “monthly” also emerged which connects police and the ruling elite in this wickedness. Many officials have not been acting according to the promise (oath) taken at the time of recruitment and to serve the ‘Holy Cause’.
Keeping in view the above, following policy options are being recommended:-
- Contemporary Human rights violations have put forth the essence to depoliticize Police and such reforms must be taken as national security agenda and concern of depoliticizing the department must be discussed at National Security Council (NSC) time to time. Political actors are well served with current status quo, so no demand of de-politicizing of police will emerge from those quarters; this is only possible when the stakeholders realize the true essence of de-politicization according to the contemporary global policing trends. Keeping in mind the history of ‘politics of police reforms’ in Pakistan, the uncontroversial body of NSC can develop strategies on police reforms according to the national security interest of Pakistan.
- Transparency in Pakistan is not achievable by establishing committees and institutions; Infusion of AI and emerging technologies is a must in police force to monitor the performance of each individual. Only a technology based autonomous and transparent system can ensure merit-based recruitments, transfers/ postings and promotions. Technical assistance must be sought from international technology vendors if required. Henceforth, appointments, transfers and promotions of senior officials may be kept on merit according to the armed forces model while making them a nation’s force rather a personal force.
- Technology based comprehensive testing system and specialized training throughout the career of lower ranks and officers are direly needed. This system must also assist in accountability and assessment at every level. A step toward technology based monitoring and evaluation must be introduced at all hierarchal levels for smart policing. Particularly inductions must be done by establishing a testing system that is impregnable by any kind of external influences.
- In order to protect Human Rights, there is a need to establish an autonomous institutional mechanism for good governance, reformation, implementation of law and order is needed to curb the ‘Mafia Mentality’ particularly the menace of corruption. The reforms must be carried out in terms of accountability, transparency and professional competence without any external interference at departmental and institutional level. This could be done by providing full autonomy in accordance with modern technology-based monitoring system.
- Contemporary challenges require sustained efforts by legislators without any political involvement for ‘the rule of law’ and ‘national interest’ of Pakistan in order to make the process flawless and uncontroversial, it is essential to take AI and emerging technologies as Co-Pilot. The above highlighted aspects are exploiting individual and human rights as well as the delivery of justice. Last but not the least, the challenges are multi-faceted and there is a long way to go. It is essential to heed the subject to understand the necessity to depoliticize the entire police regime while carry out reforms in this particular domain. Such reforms would ultimately help the police to maintain systematic approaches for capacity building, institutional prestige, public trust and establishment of law and order in order to protect the basic Human Rights in the country.
Hence, political interference has severely been violation the Human Rights in Pakistan. It has now proven as mother of all evils for policing in Pakistan. This can only be curbed by bringing the police department into comprehensive framework of accountability and autonomy keeping in view the institutional structure of Pakistan’s armed forces alike.