Mr Tassie Seneviratne’s (TS) article in the Sunday Times has directly raised the issue of police performance. More specifically, TS is talking of mal-performance, mis-performance and non-performance of police through failure of supervision.
The purpose of this article is to add to TS that failure of performance is simply failure of supervision. The instances highlighted plainly speak to a breakdown of supervision and performance, though each bear closely on the other. Those in the know, for the last 150 years of the Police in this country, the two, 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 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 strain, unmindful of the 17th Amendment impasse. Both 17th A and 19th A, while splitting the structure, deals 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 an expedient with the Army! With the Police, they would!
The article of TS picturesquely points to the stalemate in the split between supervision and performance. Where the law and the constitution do not offer, 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 in the media. The problem has been continuing, coming down with the two amendments, and will continue.
The draft of the law is from some height, in a world of their own, which is insensitive to 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.
Frank de Silva
Narahenpita
