Thursday, August 11, 2011

NEW COMMISSION FORMED TO INVESTIGATE ALLEGATIONS OF POLICE WRONGDOING August 10, 2011

NEW COMMISSION FORMED TO INVESTIGATE ALLEGATIONS OF POLICE WRONGDOING
August 10, 2011


An Internal Crimes Commission that will investigate and make recommendations for police officers who are accused and found guilty of abuse of their authority has been formed. PSU second vice president Jacqueline Willoughby Sanchez gave us the details.

Jacqueline Willoughby Sanchez – Second Vice President, PSU

“People were calling the radio stations and through different mediums complaining they felt that when they were lodging their complaints to the Police Department against Police officers that it was not reaching some logical conclusion. Through the initiative Restore Belize and the Police Reform Committee which is a component of that we determine that we will now come up with what is called an independent complaints commission, in simple, this is a five member team made up of civilians, not police officers people like magistrate, ex-magistrate, attorney general, a trade unionist, church and business that will now start to examine complaints that the public will lodge by virtue of a form that we are implementing. These forms can be had from any formations, substation, Ombudsman office and even the media houses. It is very simple what you do; get the form, fill it out, time, date, name, description is very important. You may not know the name of a police officer but there is one constant with the Police Department, if you have on a number one dress you have a number; if you have on any other form of uniform, normally in the back it is usually in bright crescent you will see the unit that those persons work in. Look at police vehicles; give descriptions if you don’t know names. What makes time important is because police officers work by shifts, so if it is five of them it is one of them, it is not very difficult to find out if you give us the exact time. Time is also important in terms of statute of limitations, if it is one of those instances that may require criminal charges, if six months pass you will not be able to get that within the court system so time is very important for the purpose of your memory. Once you have completed this form, you place it in an envelope, take it to any of the formation, Ombudsman office, there is going to be a drop box. A Police officer who is normally the diarist at these formations is to attend to you, give you a card with numbers you can make contact to people. What is the purpose of this card? It is one, to keep you the citizens involved in the process, no longer must you be able to say, I don’t know what happened to my complaint because now you have to play a part. If in a week’s time you did not receive at least a telephone confirmation from the ICC in Belmopan to say that your complaint has reached that desk, then you pick up the telephone and call those numbers that are on there. It is about bringing back confidence in the citizens, but this not a one sided thing, the citizen must play their role. We are saying your matter is going to go 60 days to solution.”

Before now, the procedure was that the complainant would go to the Police Internal Affairs Unit at the Police Department and file a complaint with a police officer of the misdeed. Now under the new system there are some changes as well.

Jacqueline Willoughby Sanchez – Second Vice President, PSU

“In this case, you will write your own report. The ICC, the five civilians will open those reports, we will make the recommendations on whether or not we think it should go criminally or otherwise. Note well that even the IAD which is now the professional standards branch so you no longer say IAD, you say the PSB and the ICC, the Professional Standards Branch that is the investigating arm of the IAD but what makes it different, they do not investigate of their own free will, they investigate what we ask them to investigate and we have the powers to summons people if in fact we feel that what was submitted was not so. We have tried from the legal end and the procedural end that will see that the citizens get redress but the citizens must be the vanguard.”

Willoughby reminds everyone that complaints forms will be made available at all district police formations and the media houses.

PUBLIC SERVICE UNION HOLDS AGM
August 10, 2011

Public servants met over the weekend for the Public Service Union’s eighty-ninth annual general meeting in the Cayo District. There were several important topics on the agenda, including the government’s proposed Ninth Amendment Bill, a new agenda to lobby the government for adequate medical insurance for public officers, and election of new officers. Jacqueline Willoughby Sanchez is the second vice president of the PSU.

Jacqueline Willoughby Sanchez – Second Vice President, PSU
“I have not been elected as the second vice president of the Union. You may ask why come back as the second vice president, for me it has never been about name and stature it has always been about the people and to see that the Public Service Union will have a continuation in the work that we begun so that is the reason I am there."

Marion Ali - Reporter
Any new agenda; any new priorities?

Jacqueline Willoughby Sanchez – Second Vice President, PSU
“One of the highlights of this AGM, as you know we have a collective agreement with Government, we are going back and forth with Government. One of the things that is in our collective agreement is the issue for health care. Over the past years it has been very depressing, not very encouraging for us, you have some public officers who are on Television asking for help and I don’t think they are putting their dignity on the line because they choose, it is because they don’t have a choice. If we work for Government, we are the ones who help this breadbasket, we churn this economy, let’s put it simply, Government would not money to count if pubic officers weren’t collecting and providing service and so we feel that we feel that we must be treated better. Our pension’s act provide that we should be given health care but now you may recall that the Karl Heusner is statutorized and so we are calling on Government, the members over 200 of them that was there, we are calling on Government and we are insisting that the union continue to lobby for medical insurance for our public officers so that is one of the highlights that came out of that meeting among other things."

Marion Ali - Reporter
Was there any position taken on the ninth amendment and what was that?

Jacqueline Willoughby Sanchez – Second Vice President, PSU
“Let me make it pristinely clear, trade unions inclusive of the Public Service Union in Belize is fully in support of the Government of Belize as it relates to the taking over and the managing of utilities, particularly where those utilities are monopolies so there is no qualms about that, that part of the amendment we are fully in support of. The clarification, lack of cohesiveness if I might put it that way is where it says that whenever there is going to be alterations to the constitution you can’t challenge it in court. That either needs better clarification or it needs an amendment because the union definitely does not support parliamentary supremacy.”

Marvin Blades of Punta Gorda is the Union’s new president. Philip Tate and Mariela Alvarado are new Councilors and Mario Caliz was re-elected as General Secretary.

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