What should be the relationship between police and citizens? How should police behave at mass protests? Barrister and former UK Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald asks some pertinent questions, after a death at the G20 protests in London, in this excerpt from a Guardian article.
Cops and citizens
By Ken Macdonald, UK barrister, writing in The Guardian about the UK, but with questions for Australia also
We need to be on the same side as the police, and they need to be on the same side as the law.
The identity of police officers matters. That is why they all have numbers. As we citizens are sometimes lectured…: if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. In the early 1980s, after an innocent young black man leaving a funfair in north London was badly beaten in the back of a police van, it was seriously contended by the Metropolitan police that the vehicle in question could not be identified. Subsequently, all police carriers had numbers painted on their sides.
We need to be on the same side as the police. And the police need to be on the same side as the rule of law. In classical common law doctrine, this means that they are subject to exactly the same constraints as the rest of us. This is not a weakness in their armoury. On the contrary, under our system it is their greatest strength because it brings the police the co-operation and consent of the public.
So here are some questions for the Independent Police Complaints Commission to consider as it investigates the events leading to Ian Tomlinson’s death (during G20 protests last month): why were British police officers attending a demonstration in the heart of London with their identifying numbers hidden? In the absence of a fire risk, who authorised them to pull balaclavas up over their heads? And why didn’t they want anyone to see their faces?
- Ken Macdonald QC practises from Matrix Chambers and was the Director of Public Prosecutions, 2003-2008
- Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/17/police-tactics-protests-ken-macdonald