On Friday, Police Service Commission (PSC) Chairman Ramesh Deosaran announced the appointment of a team tasked with reforming the commission. Even as he lauded the launch of a long awaited review of the operations of the PSC, he lamented the oversight body for the Police Service as a "no-teeth rottweiler". Under the Police Service Act of 1965, the PSC has the power of appointment of officers in the service, including promotions, transfer and confirmation of appointments and can "remove and exercise disciplinary control over persons holding or acting in such offices". The only two appointments that the PSC must, under law, defer to the political directorate, specifically the Prime Minister, are the appointments to the office of Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of Police, where it fulfils a role of review and guidance.
If the Police Service Commission operates with appropriate information available to it, it has, therefore, the power to effectively guide the leadership of the Police Service on a quite granular level. Such powers, logically, can only be effectively implemented if the PSC has a strong and well-lubricated relationship with the leadership of the Police Service, access to the information it requires to deliberate on key appointments and a clear understanding of the strategies of the senior police force leadership in executing on their mandate of law enforcement and public protection. Such interactions do not appear to be the norm, if the PSC chairman could point out on Friday that Deputy Police Commissioner Jack Ewatski was out of the country on CoP Dwayne Gibbs' quite legitimate say-so, but leaving the PSC so out of the loop that it could not properly appoint someone to act in his absence.
That PSC Chairman Ramesh Deosaran could speak knowledgeably about ploys within the promotions structure to guide the commission's decision making process, such as campaigns of malicious complaints and suspensions designed to diminish the prospects of officers not considered to be part of a favoured hierarchy only deepens the need for the reform exercise to reach deep into the bureaucracy to craft avenues for fairness and justice in a process he acknowledged to be flawed. In one startling 2008 case, 45 acting police inspectors mounted a legal battle against the PSC's Promotions Advisory Board to have their positions held vacant. The litigant 45, all of whom had been acting for more than a year, contended that they had already passed the written exam for the post, been assessed by the board and recommended for promotion and were being asked, unfairly, they felt, to appear before the board again.
There are also the troubling matters raised by former PSC chairman Nizam Mohammed, who might have failed to craft his words of caution about evidence of racial imbalance and favouritism within the service with suitable care and sensitivity, but those essential points bear consideration during the reform planning process. A disciplinary process that is demonstrably not transparent and which, according to Deosaran, drags matters through meandering and endless paths which lead nowhere serve neither the victims of poorly served justice nor innocent officers whose careers end up in the limbo of the review process. The ambit of the Police Service Commission is clear and straight forward. It is ultimately responsible for the disciplinary and promotional functions of the police service.
Its role is critical to any strategy to improve and streamline the operations of the Police Service and this process of internal review and proposals for legislative revamp of its operations is, ultimately, a welcome development. The Review Team responsible for this process will suggest legal, administrative and operations reforms of the Commission with a view to amending its status to grant greater autonomy, relevance and clarity. Professor Deosaran, who will lead the team, expects a draft report to reach the Prime Minister within two months and hopes for new laws on governance of the police service to be presented to the President, and thereafter Parliament, within six months. Delivering on those promises would be an excellent first step in the reform process.