The Sikandar fiasco and the need for SOPs

The incident of a lone gunman blocking a main road in Islamabad for several hours has raised the issues of training, capability, capacity and SOPs for police forces, during such situations. Generally, the use of force by state agents can be one of the two broad categories — military and civilian. In a situation of armed conflict (military), the use of force will be governed by international humanitarian law (more famously known as the Geneva Conventions), while the use of force in the context of the police (civilian) is broadly covered by international human rights laws. In this regard, the UN has developed detailed and specific international standards to regulate the use of force by law enforcement officials, in the civilian context. These standards can be found in the UN’s Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials of 1990 and the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials of 1979. These documents and included standards are used all over the world by police officials.

These international soft laws enunciate four key principles for civilian use of force — legality, strict necessity, proportionality and accountability. The first three principles are to be adhered to by police officials before and during the use of force operation, while the principle of accountability comes into effect after the operation. Breaching each of the first three principles leads to a specific human rights violation which, besides disciplinary proceedings, may also entail criminal responsibility.

The principle of legality establishes that force can only be used by law enforcement officials during the performance of their legal duties and functions. If the principle of legality is breached, then the use of force will be termed illegal or unlawful. We can agree that in the Sikandar Hayat incident, police officials were performing their legal functions, so the principle of legality was not breached. However, force can’t be used in performance of legal functions just like that. Force can only be resorted to in the discharge of a legal function when all other means available fail to achieve the legal objective. Before force can be deployed, non-coercive methods need to be used. When force is used without strict necessity for it, it is termed arbitrary. In this particular incident, the police are reported to have engaged in negotiations with the gunman before using force.

The principle of proportionality requires that only that much force is to be deployed, which is necessary to achieve the legal objective. Furthermore, the use of force should be deployed in a gradual manner, escalating from a lower level towards a higher level. The escalation of force should be discontinued when it appears that the consequence of a higher level of force outstrips the value of achieving the legal objective. When the principle of proportionality is breached, then the use of force is termed excessive. During the incident, the Islamabad Police used firearms to control the situation. The UN principles provide for strict control over the use of firearms during civilian use of force situations. Firearms should only be resorted to when a life is in immediate grave threat and all the other means of force are exhausted or can’t achieve the legal objective of saving life. Even then, attempts should be made to use firearms in a non-lethal manner. The Islamabad Police certainly used the firearms in a non-lethal manner; whether that was their intention or a random result is a matter for further inquiry under the accountability principle.

The international standards don’t allow the linkage of use of force in civilian context with time, distance or property. The use of force in the civilian context is erected on the key norm of minimum human injuries and casualties. The police commander is required to be trained enough to assess the situation and decide upon the entry point into the continuum of force. If he assesses that a human life is in immediate and grave threat, he can start the use of force from deployment of firearms. On the other hand, he can use negotiations to try and avoid the use of force. Shooting an armed person because he has taken to blocking the road for too long is breaching the strict necessity principle.

The incident clearly shows that there is a need to raise awareness among Pakistani police officials regarding these international principles and also, to train them for various uses of force scenarios in a civilian context.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2013.

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