B.C. Civil
Liberties Association
Proposal
for Audit of Internal Investigation Process
Municipal Police Complaint Process: Priorities for Reform
March 2005
The BC Civil Liberties Association calls on the Provincial
Government to initiate an independent audit of internal investigations
conducted into police complaints. Internal police investigation are an integral aspect of the police
complaints and public accountability process.The integrity and efficacy
of internal police investigations has been called into doubt by recent
events. It is time for an objective
assessment of whether internal investigations provide a reliable and
unbiased form of police accountability.
The proposed audit would review the intake of complaints
to ensure accessibility to the complaints process and would review the
conduct of investigations including police contact with witnesses and
complainants. The oversight function
of the Police Complaints Commissioner would be reviewed where an investigation
is shown to be inadequate or substandard.
The Association suggests that an effective audit has
four essential characteristics:
1. Independent
from Police. The auditor
must be sufficiently independent of the policing community for the public
to have confidence in the results.
Regardless of who performs the audit, there must be a commitment
in advance to publish the results of the audit without interference
or revision.
2. Credible
to the Police. The auditor
should also be perceived within the policing community as fair and reliable. The auditor must also have sufficient competence
and expertise with respect to policing and investigative work to assess
the information that will form the basis of the audit. The audit should review internal investigations
conducted by at least three separate police forces (eg. Victoria, Vancouver,
and New Westminster) to allow for inter-department comparisons and to
avoid allegations that any given police force is receiving special attention.
3. Comprehensive. The audit must ensure that all relevant
issue are examined and that the audit cover a representative sample
of complaints from all municipal police forces in B.C. that are subject
to the Police Act as well as the work of the Office of the Police
Complaints Commission.
4. Broad
Powers and Resources. The
auditor must have the legal authority to undertake a substantive review
and make findings and recommendations.
The auditor should be granted unrestricted access to evidence
and witnesses to facilitate a full review of internal investigations.
The mandate of the audit must be legally binding on the auditor, government,
and policing agencies.
The BCCLA has met with the Association of Municipal
Chiefs of Police, representatives of the Ministry of Public Safety and
Solicitor General, and BC’s Police Complaints Commissioner to promote
the idea of an audit. These
discussions have been productive and we believe that there is significant
support in principle for the initiative.
Background:
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has over forty
years experience in defending civil rights. For much of that time, the
Association has been an strong advocate for mechanisms to ensure adequate
civil oversight of policing. While the police are generally deserving
of public support given the important role they play in our democratic
society, they are imbued with tremendous powers, powers that can be
misused or abused. Police accountability to civil society is a necessary
principle in a free and democratic society.
One important aspect of civilian oversight and police
accountability is a credible and fair system for evaluating complaints
of police wrongdoing. Most citizens simply do not have the financial
means to engage in civil litigation when they believe that they have
been the victim of police misconduct. Therefore, police accountability
requires an effective complaint system so that misconduct by officers
can be identified and corrected.
The Province of British Columbia has had an Office of
the Police Complaint Commissioner since 1998.
The Commissioner is responsible for overseeing the system for
complaints against municipal, but not RCMP, police officers in the
Under the current system, the first stage of the process
for processing complaints by citizens against the police requires that
the police investigate the complaint internally.
Most often, the investigator is an officer of the same police
force as the officer who is the subject of the complaint. In rare circumstances, the Commissioner can order that the investigation
be conducted by an external police force, as occurred, for example,
when the New Westminster RCMP investigated the 50 PIVOT complaints against
the Vancouver Police Department.
Responsibility for the investigation rests with the
Chief Constable of the force under investigation. The Chief Constable determines whether there was any wrongdoing,
and imposes discipline if there was wrongdoing. The Commissioner’s role is to either affirm or disagree with the
decision of the Chief Constable. If
the Commissioner disagrees, he can order further investigation, order
a public hearing into the matter, or call on the Solicitor-General initiate
a public inquiry.
In comparison, the Provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba
and Saskatchewan have independent investigative bodies: so-called SIUs
or Special Investigative Units. Newfoundland,
Nova Scotia,
Under section 50 of the Police Act, the BC Police
Complaints Commissioner has the power to periodically conduct reviews
of the police complaint process and publish the results in his or her
The Case for an Independent Audit:
An independent audit of internal investigations of police
complaint is necessary to
The current Police Complaints Commissioner, Dirk Ryneveld,
QC, called for legislative amendments to allow his office to conduct
investigations when necessary. Court
of Appeal Justice Wally Oppal, recommended in his 1994 Commission of
Inquiry Report entitled “Closing the Gap: Policing and the Community”
that the Commissioner be granted the power to conduct investigations
when necessary.
The BCCLA agrees with Justice Oppal and Commissioner
Ryneveld that, at a minimum, the Commissioner should be granted the
power to conduct investigations when an internal investigation is shown
to be inadequate.
However, the larger question of whether the internal
investigation system is generally dysfunctional remains unanswered. Arguments both for and against the overall efficacy
of internal investigations are to some extent anecdotal or theoretical. The
BCCLA believes that the time has come to obtain empirical information
in order to evaluate whether the current system is working well or is
deficient and needs to be improved or fundamentally overhauled.
To achieve this empirical foundation, the BCCLA is recommending
that an independent audit be conducted of internal investigations of
police complaints. Such an audit
should be (1) Independent from the Police, (2) Credible to
the Police, and (3) Comprehensive and (4)granted Sufficient
Powers and Resources to conduct a full review of the efficacy of
internal investigations.
British
Columbia Civil Liberties Association
550 - 1188 W. Georgia Street
Vancouver, BC
V6E 4A2
E-mail:
info@bccla.org
Web: www.bccla.org
Tel: 604-687-2919
Fax: 604-687-3045
The
BCCLA is a non-partisan, autonomous charitable society that is member/donor
based.
Please call 604-687-2919 to inquire about supporting the BCCLA.