The Police Commissioner also discussed the financial burdens that have been placed on the government due to abuses and excess by officers under his command.
Over the years, we've told you about instances in which the Government has had to pay damages to civilians who were able to show the Supreme Court that police officers abused their authority and brutalized them. The ComPol explained this morning, that there is the contemplation of a legislative shift. The idea is to hold police officers personally liable and responsible if it can be successfully proven that they abused their authority as lawmen. Here's that back and forth:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"If we do have the matter go through the police tribunal, it does not necessarily provide the full redress that a person may want. One may want compensation for whatever wrong the police had done and the tribunal is not going to give you that. And if you do go to court in a criminal case, the criminal court is not going to give you that either and so in order for one to seek full redress then the proper venue would be the supreme court."
"We have had a number of these incidents that we had to settle, because it shows blatantly that the police acted outside the scope of their duties, but there are also some that we have not settle for the fact that we believe that there may be some justification for the actions of the police, but again, this whole issue of police being sued is becoming too regular."
Host
"Some would say its because is just acting rampant out there."
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"It is a matter of the fact that it is not their pockets that is feeling. I know that from when the Honorable Peyrefitte was our minister and even with our new minister Mr. Musa, I am advocating that we do something like Trinidad has done. Trinidad passed a law where if police officers are sued and it is found that the police officer acted outside the scope of their police procedures then those officers are held personally liable as opposed to the state. And I think that if we have something of that sort it is going to hold police officers more accountable, because they are not going to want their pockets to feel. Right now some of them don't care, because they are not the ones who are paying, it's the government. So we have to have a system where the government can charge these officers for the wrong that they have done and once that happens then they are going to get their act together. So I think that is the best way to go."
