Removing intervention is the way to police reform

The National Reform Council committee on a reform plan for police affairs is responsible for suggesting how changes should come about – and it has come up with a report that calls for a force that is free from political intervention.

The goal is to restructure the Police Commission and the National Police Policy Commission, as well as the system of appointing a national police chief.

A simple way would be to allow as much police involvement as possible in those panels and processes, while cutting down involvement of politicians.

The first thing would be to restructure the National Police Policy Commission, with the panel being deprived of the authority to appoint the national police chief. Critics say politicians often focus on this power rather than paying attention to formulating policies beneficial to the police force.

Under the proposed reform plan, members of the Police Commission would come from various organisations, in addition to the Royal Thai Police and security agencies. These would include representatives from the Office of the Attorney-General, the Lawyers Council of Thailand and the National Human Rights Commission.

Next, the police reform plan calls for a national police chief to be elected by superintendents with the rank of police colonel.

Under the current system, the incumbent national police chief nominates his successor for the National Police Policy Commission to approve.

Under the proposed reform plan, the National Police Policy Commission would nominate three candidates who were deputy national police chiefs or senior police inspectors (with a full general's rank). Then, police superintendents all over the country would vote to select from them a new national police chief. The Police Commission would suggest to the prime minister that Royal endorsement be sought for the winner to take up the new chief’s post.

The Police Commission would no longer have politicians or their appointed “specialists”. Under the reform plan, the commission’s chairman would select its members from retired deputy police chiefs – with rank of a full general – elected by superintendents from all over the country.

Other members of the commission also would be elected – six from deputy national chiefs or senior inspectors, three from retired police commissioners, incumbent police chief, secretary-general of the Civil Service Commission, representatives from the Cabinet and Parliament, as well as two specialists.

The question is whether election of the national police chief, the Police Commission chairman and other members would help solve the problem of transparency and fairness that the current system of police personnel transfers lacks.

However, there is no guarantee that election would ensure transparency. Some candidates may have a larger network than others, giving them an edge over their competitors. Also, there is concern such a new system could even worsen the practice of patronage and pulling strings in the police force.

Moreover, it is not a good idea to allow the police to exclusively run their organisation without sufficient scrutiny from outside. 

Politicians are representatives of the voters, but if we do not trust politicians, maybe representatives from other groups should be allowed membership of the police supervisory panels.

Any attempt to reform the police force should not lead to more problems. It has many headaches already.