That’s the right attitude – stand up to the police. Even they (or rather, they especially) have to stay within the law.
The Malta Independent has just uploaded an interview with Nicholas Barbara, Birdlife’s conservation manager, who says that he has been called in for questioning by the police but refused to go because no charges were brought against him.
Of course, this will now give them grounds to level charges against him (as has been done with me a couple of times): refusing to obey police orders.
Unfortunately, our magistrates tend to interpret the law on this quite literally: did you or did you not refuse to obey police orders? They refuse to examine whether those orders are legitimate or not.
Yet it is important to challenge abusive demands by the police regardless. Their requests have to be reasonable and they should not be permitted to get away lightly – it’s bad enough that they get away with it in the first place – with abusing their powers so as to harass and intimidate people they dislike or disagree with.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-04-27/news/birdlife-manager-to-refuse-request-from-police-to-go-for-questioning-4766859266/
Daphne, before the last election you had written an article about wasting votes by voting Alternattiva which would ultimately only help the MLP gain power and in turn ensure the MLP destroys all the typical priorities of these people.
Those words are materializing and I believe people should be reminded. Who knows, perhaps some sense starts prevailing again.
It had to be Anglu Farrugia photographed chatting away on his mobile phone moments before exchanging greetings with Pope Francis.
He is on Corriere della Sera on line.
Day by day I am becoming more and more concerned that we are quickly returning to a police state where the real civil liberties are being threatened.
I have lost my trust in the police and many others have this same feeling.
If arrogance is trickling from the top down, how can we ever stop this degeneration?
I would expect the Police Commissioner to be somebody to whom the normal citizen would look up to for protection, but when we see cases like this, the Owen Bonnici affair, and others, where the Police stay away from pronouncing themselves, let alone take action, then I become increasingly troubled.
What is Minister Mallia or addirittura the PM doing about this? Zilch.
When someone is invited to assist the police in an investigation a reasonable person would not interpret that as a police order not be refused.
In similar situations, perhaps it would be advisable to ask “Is that an order? SIR? With respect, of course”.
In the Malta of today there are numerous reasons why an innocent person would prefer to testify in open court rather than in the seclusion of a police station office. Remember what happened to Nardu Debono.
Full solidarity with Chris Packham and Nicholas Barbara and CABS/BLM for that matter.
The police were arrogant during the PN administrations, however in this ‘taghna lkoll’ era, their arrogance is ‘infested’ with blatant political control and is subtly slipping into the infamous 1980s status, by today’s standards.
As far as I am aware, a request to go to a police station or to Police GHQ in Floriana because someone wants to speak to you is not a “police order” and a fortiori cannot be a lawful police order which requires compliance.
A lawful police order which requires compliance is one that either stems directly from a particular provision of law or is an order given in situations connected with the maintenance of public order, i.e. in public order situations, for example an order to remove a vehicle which is otherwise parked lawfully because of the passage of a procession, or to pass from another road because of a traffic collision, or an order to stop for your particulars to be taken because you are reasonably suspected of having infringed the law.
A police order given in such situations must, moreover, be prima facie regular in form and content.
An order accompanied with threats or verbal abuse is not regular in form; an order requiring someone to do something manifestly illegal or abusive – e.g. an order to strip to your underwear in the middle of a public road – is not prima facie regular in content and can be ignored without incurring the sanction of the law.
As to being “summoned” for a “chat” at the police station or at GHQ, no person is obliged to go there unless against a warrant of arrest, which means that you are reasonably suspected of having committed an arrestable offence, and there is a specific procedure for the issue of such a warrant.
Witnesses to a criminal offence, even in those very few cases where the law requires co-operation with the police, are not required to go to the police station or to police GHQ to supply the necessary information to the police – the police can come to one’s house and have the chat there.
Of course you may not wish to allow a police officer into your home, and so it may be convenient to go to the inspector’s office, but once there you may leave at any time, and any attempt to hold you there would amount to an unlawful arrest.
Could some lawyer or other legally qualified person confirm that the above is correct, please?
A former police office, who clearly has kept abreast with changes in the law at least as far as police powers are concerned, has drawn my attention to a provision of the Criminal Code, introduced a few years back, which does appear to create an obligation to attend at a police station to give information to the police. This is section 355AD of the Criminal Code, which I reproduce hereunder from the Ministry of Justice website:
“(1) Where, in the course of an investigation, a person attends voluntarily at, or accompanies a police officer to, a police station or office, that person shall be free to leave at any time, unless and until he is informed that he is under arrest.
“(2) Where an inspector of Police has a reasonable suspicion that the person who attended voluntarily at the police station or office may have committed an offence subject to imprisonment, he may arrest such person forthwith without warrant and inform him accordingly. The time of the arrest shall be immediately recorded and immediate notice thereof shall be given to a Magistrate.
“(3) The Police may, orally or by a notice in writing, require any person to attend at the police station or other place indicated by them to give such information and to produce such documents as the Police may require and if that person so attends at the police station or place indicated to him he shall be deemed to have attended that police station or other place voluntarily. The written notice referred to in this subarticle shall contain a warning of the consequences of failure to comply, as are mentioned in subarticle (5).
“(4) Any person who is considered by the police to be in possession of any information or document relevant to any investigation has a legal obligation to comply with a request from the police to attend at a police station to give as required any such information or document: Provided that no person is bound to supply any information or document which tends to incriminate him.
“(5) A person who fails to comply with a notice in writing as is referred to in subarticle (3) or who fails, upon being so requested, even if only orally, to accompany voluntarily a police officer to a police station or other place indicated by the police officer for any purpose mentioned in the said subarticle (3) shall be guilty of a contravention punishable with detention and shall be liable to be arrested immediately under warrant.
“(6) The notice mentioned in subarticle (3) may be served with urgency in cases where the interests of justice so require.
“(7) A person who attends voluntarily as mentioned in subarticle (3) may be kept apart from any other person, but shall not be kept in any place normally used for the detention of arrested persons.”
The interesting provision is subsection (5) – for some reason “sections” have become “articles” and “subsections” are now “subarticles”.
This subsection seems to create the offence only of failing to comply with the requirement of attending at a police station or other place, or of failing to accompany a police officer to such station or other place (hence the reference in subsection (5) only to subsection (3)), but not also of failing to provide the information mentioned in subsection (4).
If the police really want the co-operation of potential witnesses, they would be well advised to use kid gloves and not the sledge hammer with such witnesses. A potential witness who is threatened with detention upon conviction and with “immediate arrest under warrant” (how can an arrest be “immediate” and yet require a warrant?) is hardly likely to be very forthcoming with information.
The police must learn that co-operation from the public comes only with the public’s trust in the Police Force; such co-operation can never be rammed down one’s throat through threats or intimidation.
It is easy to see, however, how the provisions of this section can be used by the police to harass people. Caveat curia. Again, would some lawyer care to clarify or confirm?
If you are invited, I suppose you can refuse the invitation.
This is done sometimes at some workplaces – the manager asks you to go to a meeting and then asks you to sign on the dotted line. I always refuse, because first of all I need to have reasonable time to prepare myself on the subject of the meeting.
I normally ask, “Can we meet tomorrow together with (my union representative whom I rarely trust), your manager and the HR manager?”
The grinning “manager”: “No, drop it.”
PN governments did, on occasion, seek to appease hunters and were not always enthusiastic about enforcing the law. Using the police to harass and intimidate BirdLife members was, however, unheard of.
It had to be Joseph Muscat and Manwel Mallia to resort to these ‘Chinese’ tactics.
Is this for real?
The police in Malta have too much power, many of them abuse it, and many of them are not fit for purpose. Nothing will ever be done about this, the PN were in power long enough, they failed to reform the police force. Let’s not blame the PL only.
Reliable sources tell me that lecturers swear in front of the new recruits during lectures at the Ta’ Kandja police academy .
Unfortunately it is an environment where swearing is thought to be manly.
One should generallt resoect the police and other persons in authority. Unfortunately the police all over the world tend to abuse their wide powers. In this case one should report those officilas who tend to abuse to their superiors or other investigating authorities.
The courts tend to presume police decisions as being legitimate unless proved to be otherwise, since if everyone were free to disobey police orders, chaos would reign.
You may wish to lay off the happy weed for a few days.
The point being made here is not to outright disobey all lawful orders but to resist the obvious abusive requests. For example, enforcement of data protection laws IS NOT a police competence. So any police officer claiming to the contrary is clearly trying to intimidate.
Unfortunately many Maltese see nothing wrong with openly defying the law and abusing public officials. Recently there were also a number of physical attacks on police officers. In fact Parliament recently increased the penalties applicable in these cases.
I suspect that most assault on the police is provoked by the police themselves with heavy handedness and arrogance. The police do not know how to diffuse a potentially explosive situation, they become too emotional and lose their temper. This is not the way to operate. A smile and a tap on someone’s shoulder could diffuse most disputes.
Unfortunately, Malta is becoming a laughing-stock in the eyes of truly civilised countries. I despair reading such articles and learning about the possible harassment of bird conservation activists, who are now being ‘interrogated’ by the police. What is going on?
Daphne let us make this clear once and for all. If any policman wants to have a “word” with someone, it is the policeman`s duty to go to the person and not vice versa.
A citizen has the right to TELL any police officer to call on him if the officer wants to talk to him, unless the person is put under arrest for a legal and just cause.
I quote the notorious “journalists` case”. I and Anglu Farrugia then serving with me at the CID were called by Lawrence Pullicino then commissioner. He gave us an order to arrest journalists for interrogation and investigation.
I pointed out that journalists were not to be arrested, only to be faced by the four legs to my chest and a litany of blasphemy and raging threats.
On leaving the office I made it clear to Anglu Farrugia that I was going as always, by the book. To which Anglu agreed. Being his senior I told Anglu to not only verbally but literally invite any of the journalists to our offices.
We split the work load as we had more than one journalist to deal with. I remember that on calling on one of the journalists, I was informed that he was expecting guests and that my presence might have embarrassed him.
I offered to interview him at my office or any other place he would point out. He asked if I would convey him to headquarters and back. Agreed. We went into the office, spoke for about three quarters of an hour and no sooner had the conversation ended than he was on his way.
The same treatment was given to the other journalists I interviewed. One in particular, pertaining to a political newspaper, objected and kept saying that Anglu had arrested him.
I did notice a bit of political overtone in it and in fact the next few weeks we became the headlines and the topic of public meetings.
The crux of the matter came when the most learned and revered Dr Demarco at a public meeting in Qormi opted to quote the incident and the “arrest” of the journalists.
We, the police, for we could not act on our own steam, filed libel. The hearing was one of the most correct procedures under the chair of Magistrate John Anastasi. It was resolved that there was no arrest effected by us.
In his most courteous of manners, respect and appreication Dr Demarco congratulated us for our correctness, our loyalty to the Force and our duties and the laws of the land in spite of him being the “accused” and we the prosecution.
There is case-law about this: if any police officer wants to talk to someone it is his duty to proceed to that person and not summon the person to the station.
One final thing. For a policeman to bring to book the offence of disobeying police orders, the order itself has to be legal, licit as contemplated by law itself.
If it is his duty to call on a person to ask questions he has to go the person.
If the person refuses to go to the policeman it is not licit for the officer to proceed to arrest UNLESS the officer has true (not fabricated, invented) strong valid reason to suspect that the person to be arrested is either the perpetrator of a crime or an accomplice.