Martin Okoth Ochola, the Inspector-General of Police, has instructed his officers to enforce well-established police policies, rules, tactics, and practices that are acceptable within the legal, constitutional and professional boundaries.
The Inspector-General of Police, Martin Okoth Ochola has tasked officers to apply well-established Police policies, procedures, rules, tactics, behaviours, and practices that are lawful, endorsed by, and acceptable within the professional, Constitutional and legal limits.
Ochola made the remarks during a workshop held this week under the theme understanding Civil Litigation from a Police perspective”.
He said although it is difficult to precisely measure the nature and extent of victim actions against the police or its Administrators, there are substantial indications that civil litigation against the Force and the subsequent effect on its personnel have increased significantly.
“The institutional consequences of civil suits include financial costs and bad publicity, even if the suits are successfully defended. Civil litigation can also have consequences for the individual officers involved, including financial costs, psychological stress, and a reluctance to perform policing tasks that carry a high risk for civil liability,” Ochola said.
“Some of the incidents that commonly give rise to civil litigation against police are; misuse of firearms, unlawful arrests, search, and seizure, poor responses to complaints, illegal detentions etc.”
As a result, he disclosed that the police has instituted several policies and procedures to manage and minimize the risk of civil litigation.
Some of these include, but not be limited to; appropriate personnel selection procedures, training, sensitization and supervision.
Ochola reminded that the Force has also put in place mechanisms that discipline, demote, terminate the employment of and, in some cases, file criminal charges against individual officers whose conduct does not rise to the performance level expected.
He, however, admitted that they still have a lot of work to do to ensure all their officers become law abiders.
He revealed that officers can only perform well when properly trained, supervised, and, guided to apply the right tactics and judgment in the performance of their duties without negative emotions.
“The professional practices and standards are derived from, and given meaning and clarity by a variety of legal sources that include; The Constitution of Uganda, The Police Act, The Criminal Procedure Code Act, The Penal Code Act, The Evidence Act, and the Police Standing Orders, among others,” Ochola disclosed.
He added: “At the institutional level, we have also embarked on in-service refresher training for our Police officers especially for what we can loosely term to be “perishable skills”— skills that can diminish without training— and deemed absolutely necessary and, when neglected, can lead to lawsuits.”
