Boostrapping : POL.01 - Jury Trial over Policemen
Bootstrapping
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Proposed administrative procedure - POL.01
Jury   Trial   over   Policemen

Purpose : To reduce nexusproness in supervision of policemen

Pre-requisite reading : Why Jury System is superior than judge system



    Contents
  1. Background
  2. Existing procedure against unfit policemen
  3. Flaws in the today's procedure
  4. Proposed improvement : POL.01
  5. Is this procedure fair
  6. Which procedure is less nexusprone?
  7. Advantages of POL.01
  8. Draft of the act to create procedure POL.01


Background

The purpose is to bring India's administration/courts at par with West. How? By improving record keeping in GoI-offices and reducing nexuses in GoI-offices and courts. How? We would need several laws to achieve that.

POL.01 is one of these proposed laws. (to see the list of some of the laws, please click here). The proposed law POL.01 creates a LESS nexusprone mechanism to decide if an accused policeman should be expelled/punished or not.



Existing procedure against accused policeman

Suppose citizens have complaint/evidence against a policeman. Or say that a policeman's behavior is NOT as per the citizenry's general expectations. Then what remedies do citizens have today?

As of today, only thing citizens can do is to file complaint against that policeman before a Minister or a senior home ministry officer or senior IPS officer or a judge. If the Ministers, officers or judges believe that complaint is frivilous, they can ignore it. Or if they decide against the accused policeman, then a so called "departmental inquiry" is called.

IOW, it is Minister's, officers' or judges' DISCRETION to initiate an inquiry or not. Their discretion may be honest or nexused, this is something one can never know, one can only guess or pray. The inquiry is then conducted by selected police or other government officers or judges or retired officers/judges. These officers/judges will decide if the accused policeman should be fined/expelled. And ultimately, the Tribunals and judges in High/Supreme Court will have the final say.



Flaws in the today's procedure

The sitting/retired senior policemen or other officers or judges who preside the inquiry have had a long career, spanning over several years/decades. During such a long career, it is quite natural that they would often form dense nexuses with fellow officers/policemen/judges. And the policemen who is being investigated can often use those nexuses to get away. eg most judges during their careers form nexuses with lawyers, which can be used to get some benefit of doubt. Also, the officers/judges presiding the inquiry know that defunctness in police department would hurt only the commons, and NOT the senior officers/judges. No policeman, no matter how much defunct he maym would dare to infringe their rights. So in general, they are less concerned about reducing corruption, nexuses etc in police. So even if the policeman being investigated is unfit, they really have no reason to take action against him.



Proposed improvement - POL.01 : Jury Trials over Policemen

Following is the proposed administrative procedures, which are much less nexusprone that existing the above mentioned departmental inquiry :
  1. The CM will appoint a JA (Jury Administrator) for every District/City.

  2. The JA will randomly select 30 citizens as the Grand Jury. Each Grand Juror will have a term of three months. So every month, 1/3rd will retire.

  3. Any citizen who has evidences/witnesses to show that a policeman (below the rank of SP) involved in a murder, beating, deliberate delay, corruption, extortion or any other malafide activity, can present those evidences/witnesses before the Grand Jury.

  4. If over 15 Grand Jurors declare that the complain has some truth in it, JA will randomly choose 12 citizens from the city.

  5. If over 7 out of 10 Jurors, after listening to the arguments of both sides declare that the policeman was involved in an illegal act and is unfit to serve the citizens, the Chief Minister will transfer that particular policeman out of the District within 24 hours.

  6. The transferred policeman cannot work in that district for rest of his career.

  7. If a policeman gets transferred 2 times by Jurors, he will be expelled after that.

  8. A policeman cannot be expelled or transferred before his term endswithout Jurors' approval.


Is this procedure fair from policemen's point of view?

Now in order to fine/imprison a government employee, the citizenry needs to have proofs beyond doubt that employee's behavior was criminal. But to expel en employee, citizenry need NOT have any proof --- a mere suspicion or corraberative evidence of inappropriate behaviour is sufficient.

IOW, the job in police department is NOT a birth right of a policeman, that citizenry MUST protect under any cost. Just as an employer should be free to hire or fire an employee, the citizenry of District is very much free to hire/fire District govt employee, with or without providing any reason.

Now does Jury represent the citizenry? As of today, the judges indeed have final power to expel an employee, or even imprison him. Surely, the Jury is better representative of citizenry than judges/officers, as Jury was selected at random, and they are MUCH MUCH less likely to be nexused than the judges. So by all means, Jurors are better/fairer representatives of the citizenry than Ministers, officers or judges.



Which procedure is less nexusprone or better?

Which procedure is less nexusprone? The existing procedure in which ONLY Ministers, officers, senior policemen and judges have powers to expel a policeman, or my proposed procedure, in which Jurors and ONLY Jurors have powers to expel a policeman? Since the Ministers, officers and judges have a long 5-30 year career, in general they would have developed nexuses with 100s of fellow Ministers, officers and judges, and even lawyers/criminals and wealthy individuals living that area. So inquiries by Ministers, officers and judges will have effect of those nexuses. Whereas the 12 Jurors are chosen from a population of 10,00,000 were unknown before trial started, and hence were unnexused.

Also, the Jurors know that they will become common when the trial ends, and so they are more likely to think about impact of trial's verdict on the commons' lives. Where as the judges, officers etc will not bother how the trial's verdict will impact the lives of the commons.

So Jury System over Policemen has several plus points over existing procedure of inquiry/trial by sitting or retired officers/judges. And Trial by Jury has NO minus points what-so-ever. Nevertheless, citizens using LM.01 should decide whether they want Trial by Jury or existing procedure or something else.

Also, since senior officers etc are very busy persons, and have lot of tasks to do, they seldom find time to hear the witnesses speedily. So enormous delay is caused and meanwhile witnesses get tired or tampered. So inquiry becomes fruitless. While Jurors can hear the case from morning to evening, day after day, without throwing long dates. So there is less delay, and lesser denial of justice.



Advantages of POL.01

  1. Gives a much much LESS nexusprone procedure to decide if a policeman should be expelled or not

  2. Gives a much faster, yet fairer, procedure to decide if a policeman should be expelled or not

  3. Gives a nexusless procedure to supervise policemen.


Draft of the act to create procedure POL.01

To enact POL.01, the citizens would need to pass an act in the Assembly. I have written that draft. To look at the draft, please click here.

     It will be wiser for citizens to first enact procedure LM.01, and then use LM.01 to pass this act. To know about procedure LM.02, please click here.



If you have any other question, please mail it to MehtaRahulC@yahoo.com. Thousand thanks in advance.





Next - POL.02 : Election/explusion of District Police Chief