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The Role of Parliament in Police Governance Lessons Learned from Asia and Europe MARIO J. AGUJA AND HANS BORN (EDS.) DCAF DCAF a centre for security, development and the rule of law The Role of Parliament in Police Governance Lessons Learned from Asia and Europe MARIO J. AGUJA AND HANS BORN (EDS.) DCAF DCAF a centre for security, development and the rule of law The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) is an international found ation whose mission is to assist the international community in pursuing good governance and reform of the security sector. DCAF develops and promotes norms and standards, conducts tailored policy research, identifies good practices and recommendations to promote democratic security sector governance, and provides in-country advisory support and practical assistance programmes. Visit us at www.dcaf.ch. Published by DCAF Maison de la Paix Chemin Eugène-Rigot 2E 1202 Geneva Switzerland www.dcaf.ch ISBN 978-92-9222-430-1 Editors: Mario J. Aguja and Hans Born Proofreading: Kathrin Reed Design and cover illustration: Alice Lake-Hammond, www.alicelh.co © 2017 DCAF The publication is based on country case studies compiled in the framework of a European Union project to support police reform in Myanmar (2013-2015). The views expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the institutions or editors referred to or represented within this handbook. Reproduction and translation, except for commercial purposes, are authorised, provided the source is acknowledged and provided DCAF is given prior notice and supplied with a copy. Acknowledgements While the edited volume “The Role of Parliament in Police Governance: Lessons Learned from Asia and Europe” is published under auspices of DCAF, the publication is based on country case studies compiled in the framework of a European Union (EU) project to support police reform in Myanmar (2013-2015). We are very grateful and acknowledge the support of the EU for their support. Furthermore, we would like to express our gratitude to Prof. Dr. Alice Hills, visiting professor at the universities of Durham and Leeds, for reviewing earlier versions of the country case studies and for her helpful and constructive comments. Furthermore, we are grateful to Prof. Dr. Heiner Hänggi, Deputy Director of DCAF and Head of the Policy and Research Department, for his guidance throughout the project. Moreover, we are indebted to Nargiz Arupova, Research Assistant at DCAF, for her excellent support to the publication project as well as to Youngchan Kim, DCAF Research Assistant, for his initial lay-out support and research inputs for the introductory chapter of the publication. As for any publication project, we have very much relied on the excellent proofreading carried out by Kathrin Reed, DCAF consultant. Mario J. Aguja, General Santos City, Philippines Hans Born, Geneva, Switzerland January 2017 Contents Acknowledgements ..............i 1. Who is Policing the Police? Role of Parliament in Police Governance ............... 1 MARIO J. AGUJA AND HANS BORN 2. India .................17 ARVIND VERMA 3. Indonesia ...............41 ADITYA BATARA GUNAWAN 4. The Philippines .............61 MARIO J. AGUJA 5. Thailand ................81 SRISOMBAT CHOKPRAJAKCHAT 6 . Belgium ................99 MARLEEN EASTON, JEFFREY VINCENT, ARNE DORMAELS 7. Germany ................121 HARTMUT ADEN 8. The Netherlands .............147 PETER DILLINGH 9. The United Kingdom ............171 VIC HOGG 10. Role of Parliament in Police Governance in Asia and Europe: Insights from Comparative Analysis .......197 MARIO J. AGUJA AND HANS BORN List of authors and editors ...........234 1 Who is Policing the Police? Role of Parliament in Police Governance MARIO J. AGUJA AND HANS BORN Introduction In a democratic society, the police plays an important role in ensuring public order and safety. Governed by the rule of law and guided by the principles of human rights, the police is mandated to abide by and implement the laws produced by the duly constituted authorities. On the other hand, an elected parliament is another important feature of a democratic polity. It has a mandate to represent the people and dutifully pursue matters of public interest. As democratically elected representatives of the people, among its many mandates, parliament is tasked with overseeing the state apparatuses authorized to bear weapons for the protection of the state and its people, more specifically the military, police, intelligence services, and militias. It is parliament’s role to ensure that the security sector is effective and accountable. As the primary agency for law enforcement, the police operates at close proximity to the public and exerts significant influence over 2 The Role of Parliament in Police Governance: Lessons Learned from Asia and Europe the security of individuals and communities through its behaviours and performance. Therefore, ensuring accountability of both the individuals and institutions of the police is a fundamental condition for good governance of the security sector in democratic societies.1 The parliament, as the highest representative body in a democratic system, and its committees play a significant role in maintaining police accountability. This has been emphasised in international and regional conventions and code of conducts.2 Indeed, in many countries, as this publication will demonstrate, parliaments apply their generic functions of law-making, oversight and budget control to the organisation and functioning of the police. While parliament is not the only external accountability mechanism, outside the executive and outside the police, it is one of the most important forum for public accountability of the police. Despite this recognition of the importance of the role of parliament in police governance, the topic has received little attention in academic studies, and only a few scholarly articles briefly explore police accountability to parliament. This publication will contribute to fill the knowledge gap by exploring the role of parliament in police governance in Asia and Europe, which provide comparisons across a variety of cultural, political and legal systems for police governance as existing in Asia and Europe, as will be further detailed in the section on “Context Matters” below. Furthermore a factor for deciding on comparing countries of these two continents, was provided by the specific request of the European Union (EU) to the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces (DCAF) to address police governance as part of a broader project of the EU to “Support to Reform of the Myanmar Police Force in the Areas of Community Policing and Crowd Management.” As part of its mandate, among other areas of work, DCAF assisted local authorities in Myanmar to ensure greater parliamentary accountability of the police in 2014-2015. In this context, the objective of this publication is to collect, compare and analyse good practices, as well as legal and institutional frameworks, of parliamentary oversight of the police, including parliament-police liaison Who is Policing the Police? Role of Parliament in Police Governance 3 mechanisms. To achieve this objective, the mapping study analysed the role of parliament in police governance in eight European and Asian states: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand. For each country case study, a local expert conducted field research and analysis on the basis of a terms of reference, which was uniformly applied to all case studies. In order to capture the good practices, as well as existing institutional and legal frameworks, the authors examined the role of parliament in police governance (i.e. legislative, oversight and budget control functions of parliament), and how it is exercised through parliamentary committees. The case study authors also reviewed the wider framework of police governance, in which various actors play a role in addition to parliament (i.e. the executive, judiciary, independent oversight bodies, and internal police management). Note that the case studies were written in 2014. This book presents the findings of the different case studies. It likewise compares and analyses their relevant findings as a thematic whole to gain deeper insights into the dynamics of police governance and parliament’s role in police governance. Furthermore, it highlights best practices. To situate the case studies as a coherent whole, the concept of security sector governance (SSG) in general and the role of parliament in SSG, more particularly in police governance are discussed in the succeeding section. Security sector governance Security sector governance (SSG) is a relatively new paradigm and has made, since its inception in the 1990s, an extraordinary progression in both policy and academic discourses. It broadened the narrow spectrum of civil-military relations to cover the entire security sector, including the armed forces, police, intelligence services, border security, private security companies and militias. Along with the security sector, the need for democratic accountability and civilian control of the security sector has also widened and currently includes all management and oversight institutions, such as the executive, legislature, judiciary, independent oversight bodies and civil society. 4 The Role of Parliament in Police Governance: Lessons Learned from Asia and Europe While there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach, good