KUANTAN: Ten years after it was first proposed by a Royal Commission, the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) is no closer to being set up.

Malaysian Bar president Steven Thiru said the Government’s main objection to the setting up of the external oversight commission was that the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) already existed.

“I do not think that the IPCMC is unconstitutional but the Government is against its setting up because it feels the EAIC is sufficient.

“The Government seems to have taken the view that if anything, it just needs to strengthen the EAIC,” he said at a forum on promoting greater police accountability here on Tuesday.

The EAIC, said Thiru, was not as effective because it could only make recommendations while the IPCMC was supposed to act on its findings.

The EAIC, he added, also appeared to have been designed to fail seeing that its purview was so wide.

“What has the EAIC done since it was set up in 2011?

“It only had its first inquiry into a death in police custody case four years after it was set up.

“The largest enforcement agency in the country should have its own specialised external oversight mechanism.

“You cannot lump the police force together with 18 other agencies and have the EAIC cover an estimated 3.2 million personnel,” Thiru said.

He said laws were being passed all the time that gave the police enormous powers and with more power, the police must have more accountability.

“The EAIC can look at everybody else but take the police out. We just want a commission to separately deal with the police,” he said.

Thiru said the IPCMC should not be seen as an attack against the police force as its purpose was to actually strengthen the agency by looking into areas of weakness and weeding out the rogue elements.

“The IPCMC can create stronger public confidence in the force. The public will respect the police as they know if it did something wrong, they can always go to an independent body to seek recourse.

“You cannot have the people you are complaining against investigate themselves,” said Thiru.

Resource : The Star Online