TNAG-0832-FCO40-1040-Future-of-the-Dependent-Territories-1979 — Page 35

A

specifies that his responsibilities include

"... the Police Department for establishmont matters, finance,

general organisation, training and equipment."

His authority is reflected in public when passing out parades at the Police Training School are taken, not by the Governor as used to be the case, but by the iinister. All that is left to the Governor in practice is his constitutional responsibility for internal security and even this is not exercised in any direct or arbitrary manner but through the Security Council of which the Premier and Minister of Home Affairs are members as well as the Commissioner of Police and the Commander of British Forces

in Belize. At the British Honduras Constitutional Conference in July 1963 it was agreed that

me.

"Police postings, transfers and tactical d is position will be

the responsibility of the Commissioner of Police, who will in discharging that responsibility, comply with such general directions on policy with respect to maintaining the public safety and public order as the Governor may give him." Yet in practice the Commissioner receives a good deal more "direction" from the Minister of Home Affairs than he does from

Cases occur when Ministers give directions to the police on matters, such as dispositions of personnel or handling of crowds, which lie strictly within the Commissioner's own discre- tion. Ministers also seek to interfere sometimes in the day-to- day decisions of, for example, vehicle licensing officers or immigration officers. One Minister recently accused the Commissioner of "insubordination" when he refused to comply with such a "direction" - a direction for which, the Minister subsequ- ently conceded to me, he had no lawful or constitutional authority.

9.

CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONA L

/The problem