Throw the Police Code of Ethics in the trough!

Almost eighty years ago the Nuremberg Trials established that the defence of following illegal orders was no longer an excuse, and therefore no longer tenable in a court of law.

“Start afresh, swiping the slate clean. It’s the only solution, as was already demonstrated with the Police Traffic Unit. At least, as from this week, the Academy for Disciplined Services had a change of guard with new officers occupying two of the strategic posts.”

Any student of Human Rights knows this, so it baffles me to read a police email thread, signed off by no less than warranted legal professionals, deliberately thwarting justice. And then thanking them profusely like a giddy kid discovering a unicorn in a heap of dung.

It takes a special kind of perversion and depravity to ask a graduate, placed in a sensitive police branch presumably for being a graduate, to establish a nolle prosequi claim.

As a lecturer in Criminology, I can’t recall how many times I have tutored students, both fulltime and part-time, to prepare for the police inspector’s interviews. There were times when, together with two other colleagues, I would hold information meetings for students every time there was a call for applications for the rank of Police Inspector and role play the interview setting.

I don’t have words to explain how much it pains me to see graduates, of any subject whatsoever, who take the plunge and join the rank of inspector to be of service to the country, to be betrayed by the same system that they aspired to join. Can you imagine the violation and shame on the ethical, psychological and social levels? And the eventual downwards spiral this creates? To be groomed like that?

Back in 1997, the police started recruiting graduates in the rank of inspector with the aim of upgrading and beefing up the officer ranks with quality graduates. The trend continued to the point where 25 years later, the cohort of graduates in the police force became the norm. It was the natural response to cleaning up the police after the 80s’ darkest days.

Remember the launch of the updated Police Code of Ethics in November 2020? The message was “Now we need to stick to them.” Now. Because then, there was no need for them, right? Google the coverage given by this newspaper and judge for yourselves.

But neither were they adhered to on July 13th, 2021. Ironically, that infamous email was sent on the morrow of Police Day, at 9.04am. Not that it was celebrated in the midst of Covid-19 but the Janus-faced depravity is conspicuous. I’m still reading through Robert Aquilina’s Pilatus evidence publication and the sheer extent of the material means I’d have to plough through the harrowing and hitherto uncovered reality out there with a steel-lined stomach. If the top brass persists in its sacrilegious hawking and peddling of the temple, then change the “Domine dirige nos” motto while you’re at it. You changed the uniform already, why stop there? At least you won’t be triggering the wrath of Dominus, which can be epic.

Which reminds me of the four IT university students who were strip searched for calling a spade a spade. The police came down on them like a ton of bricks but scrambled their economic crime brains for a nolle prosequi for money launderers.

What drives uniformed legal professionals especially those who weren’t born yesterday to sabotage justice? These are officers who should have been trailblazers and role models in more ways than one whether it’s the female gender breaking the glass ceiling, to graduates in legal subjects occupying some of this country’s strategic posts within the justice system. What’s in it that is so rewarding to prostitute themselves so readily and to willingly throw one’s sworn professional ethics into the pig trough?

Will their professional warrants to practice law be revoked?

Start afresh, swiping the slate clean. It’s the only solution, as was already demonstrated with the Police Traffic Unit. At least, as from this week, the Academy for Disciplined Services had a change of guard with new officers occupying two of the strategic posts. In the wake of at least two scandals known to the public, this should augur well. Hopefully gone are the days of a Facebook post urging PN MPs to be pelted on their way to Parliament, plus the racist newbie officers’ case that uncovered a heavily flawed and skewed resit logic. But why was this change of guard surreptitious almost?

How do you eradicate a corrupt prosecution? What systems do you need in place to stop grooming new officers and use them as political pawns? How will you attract good quality material in the future? How do you stop the brain drain? What crop are you going to harvest in the next 5, 10 years? How will the police governance board address this? Byron, wake up, it’s your legacy.

It’s a mess and we need a host of miracles to cure this, for years to come. It’s like cleaning the Augean Stables with no strategy.