The Police are making an ass of themselves

ARE THE POLICE MAKING AN ASS OF THEMSELVES OR THE LAW?

According to the State controlled media this week, a new law has been passed banning the wearing of camouflage attire similar to army uniforms or military wear. Anyone found in possession of these attires or wearing them, the police is quoted as saying, can go to prison or made to pay a fine. The ban also applies to balaclava.

This means that anyone in a school play wearing a balaclava would be in breach of the law. Anyone wearing any military style attire that is sold all over the world would be committing a crime in Seychelles. Any suspecting tourist arriving would have to be stripped naked at the airport and his or her trousers or shirts confiscated.

Surely, the fact that all kitchens in Seychelles have knives do not make every family in Seychelles a potential violent criminal that could mug you using a knife. Equally, wearing an attire with a cannabis motif does not make one a drug addict, especially if one has never seen a cannabis plant before and would not recognise one if it hits you in the face. Taken to its logical conclusion, this argument means that when SBC shows us cannabis plants and identified them as such, or heroin being prepared and injected with syringes, it is educating us to be addicts.

But the law the police was referring to does not give anyone the right to confiscate any of these attires. In fact it is not a new law at all. What the government has done is to prescribe a ban on the importation of these attires under the Trades Tax Act, in the same way it prescribed a ban the on importation of rice, sugar, margarine etc. except by SMB.

In other words, as far as these attires are concerned only the SPDF and the Police can import them one presumes, since they wear such uniforms. Surely it is not the Trades Tax Act that makes it illegal to carry a gun or to consume panadols, even though both of these are prescribed by the Trades Tax Act?

The Trades Tax Act does not give the government the power to stop anyone wearing any military style attire here in Seychelles. The purpose of the Trades Tax Act is to stop the importation of goods or place a tax on its value, even if the first is potentially unconstitutional. Yet the police claims that they have confiscated stocks of ready made garments already imported before the import restriction was imposed. If this is true, legal experts say, it would be a gross violation of the right of the person who has legally imported the items.

It was not uncommon under the one-party state for enthusiastic agents of the State to justify the arrest and detention of anyone suspecting to be enemies of the state using any statute it fancies. Today we are in a democracy where the citizen’s rights are protected by the Constitution, which is the fundamental law.

Surely the Attorney General can draft a law that makes the committing of a crime while one is wearing a balaclava or military style uniform more severe in its punishment. Otherwise, a wily policeman can arrest any military person who is simply going around during his off days in his military fatigue. How will he know the other is not a criminal in disguise? And when the SPU or SPDF is on some stake out around one’s house how do we know he is an officer of the law and not a criminal in disguise?

But the tests for any law which restricts the freedom of the individual, according to the Constitution, is if it is necessary in a democratic society and is needed to protect the freedom of others, the health of the society at large and in the interest of national defence or morals. In Northern Ireland, where the IRA was committing crimes wearing balaclava it was not a crime to possess one, but it was taken into serious consideration when one was apprehended and the object was found in ones possession. Surely, a balaclava cannot be treated like heroin.

In our country today anyone can place a road block or appear at your home in any manner of clothing or disguises and claim he or she is the police or some authority. The SMB Act gives Mr Mukesh Valabhji the right to walk into your premises to confiscate any goods or documents. That may sound bizarre, but it is true.

It used to be that there is always a police officer in uniform present when an arrest is made. It used to be that police officers would wear a number in a distinct position on his or her uniform so that the citizen can recognise it. Under the one party state its agents wanted to make sure you would not recognise them as one. In a democracy it is the opposite, for the right of the citizen must be respected above all else.

In a free society crimes can only be deterred but not banned, as the agents of the one party state found out to their costs. That is why our new Police Commissioner Mr Waye Hive must not only teach his police officers the law but also respect for the law and the recognition that the police’s job is above all else to protect the citizen by apprehending the criminal. To do their job properly the police must develop proper skills while at all times being accountable.

The purpose of the constitution is not to grant unlimited power to government, or to limit the rights of an individual, but to limit the power of government to its only valid purpose: the protection of individual rights.