THE police have decided not to arrest any public servants without specific information and evidence in cases filed in connection with the student-mass uprising that spanned July and August. The police have also decided to drop the names of public servants and other individuals accused in such cases if their involvement is not proved in preliminary investigations. The police headquarters have asked the Police Bureau of Investigation to take steps in this regard by September 22 and submit a report on the cases, both in soft and hard formats. The notice, which observes that many public servants have been named accused in the cases filed by victim families and aggrieved people in connection with the student-mass uprising, has been consequent on the resolution of the first meeting of the advisory committee on law and order which has asked the investigation bureau to distribute the copy of the notice to all police officers-in-charge and operations control rooms. The instruction not to arrest public servants without specific information and evidence in cases filed over the uprising is a welcome move in efforts to establish the rule of law. But the police headquarters instruction still leaves three questions to be answered.
Why is the instruction not to arrest public servants without specific information and evidence meant only for cases that have been filed over the student-pass uprising? The cases that are filed over the uprising are no different from other cases filed over other crimes. The instruction, therefore, reeks of a police bias against cases filed in other times. And, why is the instruction only meant not to arrest only public servants without specific information and evidence? Other people accused in the cases should also be afforded equal treatment. Being public servants makes them no different from others outside public services or other ordinary citizens. The deputy inspector general of the Police Bureau of Investigation seeks to say that there are certain protocols to arrest serving public servants as such action requires permission of the government and notes that this could also apply to all the accused. The Public Services Act 2018, which came into force in October 2019, provisions for the arrest of public servants, before a court frames charges in any criminal case, only after the sanction of the higher authorities concerned. The provision not being applicable to cases of other citizens contradicts legal egalitarianism, implying that not all are equal in the eyes of the law.
The provision in the Public Services Act 2018 or the police instruction at hand regarding the arrest of public servants is discriminatory. It also harms the rule of law and justice dispensation. It sends out a negative signal about police reforms that have been majorly in discussion after the student-mass uprising. The government should look into this discriminatory provision and instruction to ensure transparency, professionalism and neutral public administration. Public servants should stand equal as others in the eyes of the law.