POLICE-PUBLIC RELATIONSHIP

The model police officer is the officer who tempers the exercise of his statutory powers in moderation (Pic AFP) 

Police-public cordial relationship is a sine qua non for any civilised democracy to sustained the most cherished ideals of democratic rule. They are significant as per provisions of the Police Ordinance and the constitution of our country in protecting lives and property of the people, upholding rule of law, assisting the due administration of justice and in bringing the wrong doers to book. 

There is no gainsaying the fact, in an overall evaluation of the police ever since it was established under the provisions Ordinance no. 16 of 1816 by colonial rule it has rendered remarkable service to the people of this country particularly in moments of national crisis and phenomena of natural disasters. The present COVID-19 pandemic, 2004 Tsunami and the 30-year civil war are classic examples of such instances. 

The saga of a police officer high-jumping over the body of an errant lorry driver, coming hot on the heels of a similar act of cruelty at Paliyagoda where the son of a President’s Counsel was badly manhandled by the police within the very precincts of a police station offers no edification for the general public to form a positive attitude towards the police

It is a salient trait of human nature that attitudes and perceptions of people towards certain institutions and people are based, not so much on theoretical concepts as, on pragmatic considerations. 

We find Shakespeare, the greatest English poet and satirist of the English speaking world conceptualizing this realistic feature in mankind in his celebrated the dictum “Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.  

The saga of a police officer high-jumping over the body of an errant lorry driver, coming hot on the heels of a similar act of cruelty at Paliyagoda where the son of a President’s Counsel was badly manhandled by the police within the very precincts of a police station offers no edification for the general public to form a positive attitude towards the police. 

T S. Fernando, an eminent Supreme Court judge of Sri Lanka, who has often seen the function of police duties, and the excesses of police officers from close quarters as supreme court judge laid down the following formula for an ideal police officer in these terms: “The model police officer is the officer who tempers the exercise of his statutory powers not only in moderation, but also with good humour” (reported in Azees v.Seneviratne 69 NLR At PGE210). 

To bring home the wisdom of this aphorism to every police officer I suggest it would be in the fitness of things to have these words inscribed in the inner walls of every police station. 
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