Do police know who they are accountable to?

Do police know who they are accountable to?

By Adnan Pandupraja

JAKARTA (JP): The new Police Bill was submitted to the House
of Representatives by Baharuddin Lopa immediately after he had
been installed as the Minister of Justice and Human Rights.
Together with the then National Police chief Gen. Soerojo
Bimantoro, he submitted to the House the draft of a law to
replace the current Police Law No. 28 of 1977.

Meanwhile, Minister of Defense Mahfud M.D., has unexpectedly
begun to talk about returning the police to their former position
as part of the military, as was the case under the New Order.

Hopefully this was merely a warning to the police to realize
that they were a part of civil society who had to uphold the
public interest rather than their own esprit de corps.

The recent controversy over the police leadership lends
further urgency to the deliberation of the Police Bill.

Yet, a closer look at the draft of the bill also shows that it
ignores the principle of civil society as stipulated in People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR) Decree No. 9 1998 on clean
governance.

In general, the Police Bill does not much differ much from the
previous law, except as regards the expansion of police powers
after they split from the military. The bill does not reconstruct
the police organization and direct it towards a civil society
structure, although the term "civil society" is mentioned in the
bill's preamble.

This may have happened because the bill was drafted without
prior research on what all levels of society expect from their
future police force. Neither has the bill been adequately
introduced to the public.

What principles should have been contained in the draft of the
bill in line with the MPR decree on clean governance?

One is transparency -- meaning the opening up of the police to
the public's right to obtain information on state administration
in an honest and nondiscriminatory manner, with appropriate
attention being paid to the protection of individual and group
rights as well as state secrets.

The aim of this principle is to encourage the police to become
more open to the public about their activities.

Transparency is particularly required in "big" cases allegedly
implicating the Indonesian Military (TNI) or its members, such as
the recent cases involving counterfeiting, offshore fuel sales,
the shooting of students, and the explosion at the Jakarta Stock
Exchange. So far the police are still showing reluctance when
having to deal with TNI members.

Transparency is not only aimed at protecting the public
interest but also preventing undesirable behavior on the part of
police and military members.

The next problem is to whom the police must be transparent
bearing in mind the many confidential aspects involved. There has
only been occasional transparency, such as when the police have
had to provide explanations to legislators.

Questions remain, however, such as when police summoned
members of the legislature's special committee investigating the
"Bruneigate" and "Buloggate" scandals. The legislators rejected
the summonses saying that police should have summoned those named
in their investigation report.

In such cases an independent institution to monitor and
supervise police conduct is needed -- something similar to the
Supreme Audit Agency (BPK). In the United States this is known as
the Citizen Review Board or in Hong Kong, the Organization Review
Committee.

One of the main functions of such institutions lies in their
powers to order a halt to police investigations within a checks
and balances format in the event of an obvious lack of evidence.

In the absence of such institutions, decisions to continue or
discontinue investigations are vulnerable to corruption,
collusion and nepotism.

The next problem is, which police institutions should be
required to account for their actions? Given the newly
implemented regional autonomy, accountability is required of the
police at the regency level (polres), with the force concerned
being answerable to its local council.

This is supported by the fact that the police are responsible
for security across the country and, like it or not, regencies
must entrust security to their police forces, and must therefore
contribute to the police budget in their localities.

Besides, the police hold judicial functions along with the
district courts and prosecutors' offices.

The police must also apply accountability -- which means that
each and every activity related to state administration must be
accounted for in accordance with the law to the people, the
ultimate repository of state sovereignty.

Look closely at the annual reports of the National Police
chief and regional police chiefs and compare one regional police
report with another. One can conclude that first, there is no
standard report, and second, that such reports never reflect
reality.

These reports are certainly not trustworthy and cannot be used
as reference material by researchers. Why do such things happen?
In addition to not being compulsory, such reports are not
considered to be a form of accountability which requires the
approval of the constituents. This paradigm might go along the
lines of, aren't the police part of the executive branch of
government, and aren't police reports covered by the
accountability statement the President delivers to the MPR annual
session?

Such a paradigm is out of date, especially given that the
appointment of the National Police chief differs from that of
Cabinet ministers. Accordingly, the police chief should therefore
be accountable to the people, and his report should be capable of
being accepted or rejected by the legislature or local councils,
similar to the way in which a company's board of directors must
collectively account to the company's shareholders.

Meanwhile, the debate over who is in charge of public order
ended with the issuance of MPR Decrees No. 6 and 7 of 1998. The
police are the only organization vested with authority over
security and public order.

The main challenge facing the police is the current spirit of
separatism in various areas, and the euphoria of "government by
(local) politicians" who are against anything smelling remotely
of the "center". The police must become a unifying agent in the
unitary republic without neglecting human rights, and must become
an example as regards the implementation of regional autonomy.

However, the country's trauma under the New Order has shown
clearly that unlimited autonomy becomes a disaster when not
counterbalanced by public control, as pointed out in the MPR
decree on clean governance. The past has also shown how such
control is impossible without the support of another independent
body, which should be provided for in the draft of the police
bill.

The writer is Secretary General of the Jakarta-based
Indonesian Police Watch, a nongovernmental group.