XN000022-1995-06-28 — Page 41

(a)

(b)

(c)

- 21-

of the merits and demerits of the two proposals mentioned above;

of the outcome of the Government's consideration; and

whether there is any other plan to support and reinforce the work of the Independent Police Complaints Council?

Reply:

Mr President,

As regards the first part of the question, the proposal to appoint non-police officers to the Complaints Against the Police Office (CAPO) might enhance public confidence in our system of handling complaints against the Police, since the investigation work would not exclusively be carried out by police officers. However, the non-police investigators, if appointed, would still be under police command and it will be difficult to recruit non-police investigators of the right calibre, who must have the necessary expertise and knowledge of police procedures. This is because most of the complaints involve allegations of breaches of the law or police discipline or procedures. Without this knowledge, they do not have the professional skills to make a fair judgement as to whether the action of the police officer under investigation is justified in the circumstances of the case.

The merits of appointing lay observers are that they would not be under the command of CAPO, and would thus be "independent". The involvement of lay observers in the investigatory process would enhance the transparency of the present system. The drawbacks of the proposal are that lay observers cannot participate in the investigation work, and they may not be able to follow through the whole investigation process.

As regards the second part of the question, the idea of appointing non-police investigators was first put forward by the (then) Police Complaints Council in 1993. After careful consideration, the Government did not accept the proposal for the reasons I have just mentioned. We are, however, prepared to discuss this further with the IPCC and to consider any additional arguments which the Council might put forward.

The IPCC did not support the Government's proposal for lay observers, as an alternative to appointing non-police investigators. We do not consider that the lay observers scheme can achieve good results without the support of the Council and have, therefore, decided that the idea should be shelved for the time being.