POLICING SYSTEM REFORMS
Honest, fair and justly police system is considered strong foundation of social justice in any civilised society. Social Justice, right punishments and integrity of citizens only can be guaranteed if the police system of the country is accountable with strict check and balance of delegated powers and functionality.
Since independence untill 1998; the policing system in Pakistan was one of the worst of its kind in the world. It delegated absolute powers and unlimited authority to one police officer for handling multiple conflicting functions watch & ward and investigation that was major cause of injustice and false arrests, false charges, extra judicial killings and extra judicial imprisonment of common man of unprivileged class. On top of that legal inspectors from police department were handling prosecution under command of deputy commissioners (Chief Prosecution Officer) who were not law graduates. The nutshell was that fate of common man was in the hands of one authority under control of inspector general police. Resultantly, police system with centralized powers was a failure of effective and justly policing that was a product of corruption, injustice, imbalance and unaccountable system.
Mr. Mansoor became aware of it when he a police inspector tried to charge him for rape and murder of a girl when he went to report police station of disappearance of his broken down vehicle on road side that in fact police had towed to police station and spread some hen’s blood along with some broken bangles on back seat. Thereafter he went through an exercise of interviewing dozens of prisoners in detention centers and found out that those prisoners in reality were not guilty of any crime or offence but were charged for the crime or offence that they had not committed or were imprisoned for unlimited period of time either for petty offences or under section 55 arrest and detention of person being a vagabond. After a long and tiresome research he concluded that Pakistani policing system is promoting injustice and cruelty instead of bringing culprits to justice and to provide safety and protection to common man. He judged a dire need of devolution of powers and separation of three departments to get people justice and punish the culprits. Mr. Mansoor filed writ petition before superior courts challenging it unfair, week, corrupt and imbalanced system. The superior courts agreed with the stance of the petitioner awarding judgment in his favor based on pray and ordered the concerned authorities for Devolution of powers separating watch & ward, investigation departments and to further set up an independent prosecution department consisting of public Attorneys for prosecution under the supervision of law graduate District public attorneys.
It was further prayed by the petitioner to abolish posts of legal inspectors and chief prosecution officer. The directions of superior courts were implemented during tenure of ex-president General Pervez Musharraf government which has given a positive output in shape of justly and effective policing system. The change in police structure resulted in devolution of powers, an end to false arrests and charges. The effectiveness was increased and has significantly dropped level of corruption and resulted in free justly investigation, speedy prosecution. Additionally those reforms in police system created thousands new jobs in police and prosecution departments as well as enhanced level of good governance.