Police performance and the missing link in 19A

Tassie Seneviratne's (TS) article in the Sunday Times has directly raised the issue of police performance. More specifically, TS was talking of mal-performance, mis-performance and non-performance of the police due to failure of supervision.

The purpose of this article is to expand on the views of TS that failure of performance is simply failure of supervision. The instances highlighted plainly speak to a breakdown of supervision and performance, though each impact closely on the other. Those in the know, agree that for the past 150 years of the Police in this country, supervision and performance went hand in hand. The 17th Amendment split that apart. The supervisory line was broken into two, the higher ranks and the lower ranks. The National Police Commission (NPC) controlled the higher ranks; the IGP controlled the lower ranks. Performance fell in between. The minister and the NPC even cross traded allegations about police performance. The media reported this prominently and embarrassingly.

The 19th Amendment blindly follows in that same vein, unmindful of the 17th Amendment impasse. Both 17A and 19A, while splitting the structure, deal only with authority, not with responsibility for performance. The Independent Commissions are eager to take on authority but are averse to taking on responsibility.

The law experts will not entertain such a proposition with the Army. With the Police, they would!

TS' article points at the stalemate over the split between supervision and performance. Where the law and the constitution are ineffective, the residents of Kopiwatte have themselves to come out in their numbers to agitate against non- performance. Failure of performance is not in such isolated instances; it is an everyday feature. The problem has been continuing, coming down with the two amendments, and will continue.

The draft of the law is from some height - from those who live in a world of their own and are insensitive to the problems on the ground. Hence the standoff.

Plainly, the concerns of TS are immaterial to the law experts. Or else they may move, even now, to consider what best can yet be done. (The writer is a

former IGP)