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Stop and Search

Aug 03, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Members of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) that are on duty can stop and search any vehicle or anyone at any time.  There is a qualifier, though, and it has strength.  The GPF can stop and search vehicles and persons, but only within the bounds of Section 18 of the Police Act.  In language for the understanding of ordinary citizens, the GPF rank, or officer must have reasonable grounds for doing so.  The entire Section 18 reads as follows: “Any member of the Force may stop, search and detain any aircraft, vessel or vehicle in or upon which there shall be reason to suspect that anything stolen or unlawfully obtained, or that any person suspected of having committed an indictable offense, may be found; and he may also stop, search and detain any person who may be reasonably suspected of having or conveying in any manner anything stolen, or unlawfully obtained.”

Clearly, the GPF has been given considerable power to do its duties, but it is also constrained by the same Section 18 in the protections that are due to citizens.  Law-abiding citizens do well to familiarize themselves with what is due to them and take comfort in what the law affords them.

Reasonably and reasonable mean that there must be some basis for a stop and search of citizens and their property.  Reasonably is not random nor whatever the whim or selfish objective of the rank on duty harbours.  The GPF has a duty to ensure that this is instilled into its members at every level and that it is strictly followed.  It cannot be hot one day, then cold on another.  There must be consistency in application of that reasonableness test on the roads and other GPF operations.  There cannot be that standard for some people and its absence when others come within the radar of the GPF and attract its attention.  If the GPF is ever going to rise to its fullest height, then it is imperative that the training and reminders of what must be the standard cannot stop, nor be toyed with, in that such standard functions with an on and off switch. The natural complement to this is that citizens must know where they stand relative to stop and search and understand the limits of the GPF’s authority.  An informed citizen makes for a better GPF.  To comply with what is unreasonable and probably unsound, if not a violation of the law, is to open the door for wrongdoing, lend a hand to official corruption in the GPF.

It was the Minister of Home Affairs himself, Robeson Benn, who said that he is bombarded with calls about shakedowns and other forms of corruption practised by GPF members.  Citizens have their part to do, and they must know their rights and when lawful, stand by them during stops and searches of their vehicles, other property, or their persons.  If the GPF is going to improve, it must be a combined effort encircling the institution and those Guyanese who attract its gaze.  Guyanese must know that ‘report to the station’ has its place.  But again, only on the basis of judgement calls that are reasonably based.  Judgement calls that can withstand any retaliatory legal action taken by citizens who believe that they have been wronged, because the requirements of the law were ignored.

We say this because as attorney-at-law and UG Lecturer, Chevy Devonish, noted that ‘report to the station’ for the wrong reasons constitutes what is tantamount to “unlawful detention.”  Further, when the GPF takes such a matter to the court, it opens itself up to claims of “malicious prosecution.”  Citizens who take what has happened to them seriously can then initiate their own legal proceedings and file for damages.

Mr. Devonish ruefully recounted that the GPF has been forced to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring such court filings to an end.  All this can be avoided when the GPF goes the extra yard to remind its ranks and officers that the stop and search provisions of Section 18 of the Police Act are always in operation. Police members must apply those when conditions provide reasonable grounds for doing so.

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