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The President’s statement is not a ‘blank cheque’ for cops to kill without applying standard operating procedure

Mar 11, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
Recently at the Police Officers Conference, President Bharrat Jagdeo in addressing senior members of the Guyana Police Force would have stated that he “supported the use of deadly force if policemen lives are threatened”.
Like a large number of my countrymen, I share the same frustration that the President is feeling as it relates to the high level of crime experienced throughout the country.
This has come on the back drop of the Home Affairs Minister statement in Parliament recently that crime is at a manageable level. The Commissioner of Police in his address would have said that so far for this year, the crime rate has escalated by nine per cent, which clearly shows that there is an emerging public security crisis that needs a comprehensive plan to deal with such.
Mr. President like you I am fully supportive of the Guyana Police Force in its fight to maintain law and order in this beautiful land of ours. However, your support for the use of lethal force when faced with life threatening situations could be interpreted by some members of the security forces as a “blank cheque” to shoot to kill without applying standard operating procedure when faced with threatening situations.
Guyana is a signatory to many international conventions which governs the protection of Human Rights. As such it is expected that when law enforcement officers are faced with threatening situations, the principles of proportionally needs to be taken into consideration. The United Nations Basic Principles on the use of force and firearms provide guidelines on how law enforcement officers should operate when facing a high level of danger. Principal 9 states that:
Law enforcement officials shall not use firearms against persons except in self defence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury, to prevent the perpetration of a particularly serious crime involving grave threat to life, to arrest a person presenting such a danger and resisting their authority, or to prevent his or her escape, and only when less extreme means are insufficient to achieve these objectives. The intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.
The above principle clearly defines that lethal force should only be used for protecting life and limb .The principle of proportionality was examined in the Human Rights Committee case of Guerrero v Colombia CCPR/C/15/D 45/1979 (31 March 1982) where  the state was found to have violated Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as police had waited in a location inhabited by suspected terrorist and, on their arrival shot them without making an attempt to arrest them. Again in Nochova and others v Bulgaria (2006 42 EHRR), involving UN Basic Principles, the European Court found that recourse to deadly force cannot be considered absolutely necessary  where it is known that the person to be arrested poses no threat to life or limb and is not suspected of having committed a violent offence .
Most of the country’s population do not condone the criminality being perpetuated on innocent and hard working citizens, and would support any plausible strategy put forward by the government and civil society to eradicate and reduce crime. However, in the restoration of law and order, it must be implored on our uniformed forces that they must operate within the confines of the law as they seek to apprehend law breakers. Over the last three decades, our security forces were accused of serious Human Rights violation both locally and by the international community. I trust that even as they carry out their constitutional mandate, the senior police officers in charge of daily security operations would exercise a high level of restraint, with apprehension and conviction being their first option and the use of lethal force being the last to be considered.
Michael Baird (Jr)

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