THE GOLDING administration's election manifesto promised to set up an independent commission to investigate police excesses will, in its initial stages, be forced to use the expertise of the police force.

For years, public cries have resonated across the island for the establishment of a body comprising civilians only, to probe police killings and other offences against Jamaicans.

The Independent Commission of Investigations Act, 2009, if passed by the House of Representatives, will repeal the Police Public Complaints Act, 1992. This would lead to the setting up of a commission, comprising independent investigators, that would replace the Police Public Complaints Authority, a department now staffed by police personnel.

Public consensus is that the police have failed miserably to conduct impartial investigations involving their colleagues.

Long deliberation

A committee deliberating on the Independent Commission of Investigations Bill on Tuesday spent a long time trying to determine whether the commission could, in its developmental stage, carry out its mandate without the input of the police.

During the discussion, it was argued that the staff of the proposed independent commission would inevitably have to rely on assistance from police personnel in conducting investigations.

Committee member K.D. Knight said investigations being carried out by the commission would, at some point, involve ballistic tests.

Knight proposed a transition period in which members of the police force would be involved in the work of the commission.

"The ballistic experts that we have here are policemen. What is going to happen? Is the ballistic expert going to be precluded from carrying out the tests?" he questioned.

"You need some kind of transition period. If you preclude, you are saying within two years the staff must be up to scratch to handle all the investigations. If that is not so, you are going to run into problems," Knight said.

Chairperson of the committee, Justice Minister Dorothy Light-bourne, explained that the commission would be interacting with the forensic department and other departments of the force. She, however, insisted that the commission would not employ current members of the force.

Imitating the irish

Drawing on the Irish model of an independent agency that was set up to investigate police misconduct, Senator Mark Golding sought to find out whether that jurisdiction operated independently of the police in technical areas such as forensic science.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Justin Felice, who provides technical advice to the committee, said the forensic science service in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland was independent of the police.

"The good intent is that the police should not investigate the police," Felice commented, but he advised the committee that the commission might have to draw on resources from the force. "There would have to be the backbone of some policing experience in setting up this commission at a very early stage," Felice told the committee.

Felice said a similar agency has been set up in Northern Ireland and staffed by junior and senior police personnel who were seconded from the police force to investigate their colleagues.