The immediacy factor
Immediate compliance or carrying out of order irrespective of the objective conditions or the limiting circumstances, is a dominant characteristic of our enforcement scenario. Whether it is the political boss or the armchair bureaucrat at the secretariat or the senior commander at the headquarters level, the overriding expectation is of almost bionic compliance, at times for very cogent compulsions. In such a situation the real problem arises due to the commonly mistaken equation of speed with efficiency because what is efficiently done may not have been lawfully accomplished. In the initial desperation of a horrendous crime or a law and order situation, the element of lawful conduct is often lost sight of. The political or the administrative boss dishes out/barks out orders like "I want action within 24 hours" or "How you do the job is not my business" or "I don't know how would you do the job but you have to accomplish the task by tomorrow". It is only appropriate to mention here that acts done under tremendous haste and desperation mostly do not stand the test of law subsequently.

The other ill effects of immediacy are that, quite paradoxically, lawless police officers are in great demand when in an area lawlessness and disorder prevail. Police behavioural norms that are generally admired are those of 'tough' rather 'soft' behaviour. Believers in the rule of law and followers of the straight legal methods are considered to be 'softies' and 'sissies' and are not adjudged fit enough to deal with those explosive situations because a police officer working within the limitations of the rule of law will have to put in sustained efforts to achieve substantial results. A rule of law oriented police officer will be able to show substantial results in the long-run but the bosses are interested in short-term spectacular results even though they may be illusory. It thus follows that our de jure expectations (compatible with the rule of law) of the police are at total variance with our de facto expectations (compatible with the rule of order). It is this pernicious double standard which makes people think that the police are principally an agency of social control with their chief value being efficient enforcement of the prohibitive norms of substantive criminal law.

Statistical result orientation
Despite police's well-known limited capacity, the public continues to expect the police to prevent all crime and the police tend to continue to commit themselves to the same goal. Many police officers, thus, become so zealous about their effectiveness that they look only at the ends and do not bother about the legality of the means they employ. This is most clearly reflected in the practice of using crime statistics as a measure of police effectiveness -- the police being held accountable for increase in reported crime and being credited when a reduction occurs. Policemen's performance is judged by the percentage of detection (how many cases out of the registered ones have been investigated and sent up for trial in courts), percentage of recovery of stolen property (how much stolen property involved in such offences has been recovered) and percentage of conviction (how many cases sent by the police to the courts for trial have resulted in the conviction of the accused).

The overriding target of achieving good statistical results on all these fronts compels, the policemen to resort to non-registration of cognisable crime and offences, use of third degree methods, fabrication and concoction of evidence, having fake encounters with criminals and terrorists and gimmicks for improving their performance just to show off to the power-that-be and the unsuspecting citizens that they are effective and as such real police officers who deliver goods.

The above statistical result-orientation of the police owes its very existence to the superintendence and control of the executive over the police. The executive have to face the parliament (to which they are accountable) and when there is no increase in reported crime, they can, with a sense of satisfaction, claim that law and order in the state are well under control. Unscru-pulous policemen continue to resort to illegal methods for doing thins they ought not to do.

Civil liberty and police effectiveness
The police is authorised to use reasonable and necessary force to take custody of a person, to defend themselves or others, and to maintains order. Just how much force is reasonable and is necessary depends upon the facts of the situation, and of course not all instances of use of police force are unreasonable and unnecessary. However, the rule of law, in its application to the criminal process, is primarily concerned with the protection of the rights of the accused and not of victims and upholding civil liberties of the citizens. The rule of law and its subservient criminal jurisprudence are unequivocally in favour of the offenders, the criminals, the law breakers, the accused persons. The dice accordingly, from the very beginning, is loaded against police effectiveness. It is thus often said that police effectiveness and civil liberties can hardly satisfactorily co-exist in a society expected to be governed by law. Such a society is, therefore, constrained to sacrifice police effectiveness at the altar of civil liberties which indeed is as it ought to be. In this idealistic backdrop when police officers find that, despite their earnest endeavours, they are not as spectacularly effective as they should be, they too frequently become defensive and frustrated. The result is often scapegoating of other branches of the criminal justice system or particular segments of the community.

The pursuit of perfection
Are our courts insisting on too high a standard of fool-proof evidence without perhaps realising that judicial quest for perfect proof may often account for police presentation of fool-proof concoction? Must we not realise that perfect proof cannot perhaps be had in this mater-of-fact imperfect world where truth suffers some infirmity when projected through human process? It is necessary to have proof beyond reasonable doubt but it may not be necessary for that proof to be perfect. If a case is proved too perfectly it runs the risk of attracting accusations of artificiality and similarly when the case displays flaws it may be deemed as having imperfect evidence. The point to be highlighted is that whether in our meticulous hypersensitivity to eliminate a rare innocent from being punished many guilty persons must be callously allowed to escape.

The means and goals
Some ill-trained police officers believe that if the culprit is known, there is no harm in creating some evidence to punish or convict him. This is queer logic because if fabrication of evidence were to be justified because of the so-called laudable motive of punishing a known culprit, then the worst criminal on earth also could have justified the blackest crime on ground of good motive. It has to be remembered that the police is under the hegemony of a legal system with a basic commitment to the rule of law. Police officers are sworn to uphold the law. The enforcers of the law must not be allowed to violate the law even to catch the criminals. If they are permitted to resort to 'dirty' methods, they make the law dirty. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law. To declare that the government may commit crimes to ensure punishment of criminal would bring terrible retribution. It is to be borne in mind that the interest of the civilised governments is not to score points or play to the gallery but to ensure that justice shall be done. Law is the means and justice is the goal.

Muhammad Nurul Huda is former Inspector General of Police and Secretary to the government.