Summarizing a year, it’s impossible not to mention about one of the aspects of police reform – due planning, lack of which makes the reform more and more inconsequent and such that does not solve systemic problems in the activity of Ukrainian police.
Let us remind you, that two weeks ago a competition for the position of Chief of National Police was officially initiated. It foresees, particularly, submission by the candidate of a motivation letter containing a short- and long-term objectives at this position, in particular, first measures which the candidate plans to implement at this position with the aim to provide for the effective activity of the National Police of Ukraine, realization of necessary reforms etc.
Experts of Reanimation Package of Reforms on reforming law enforcement authorities, in their turn, believe that elaboration and publication of concept of his/her own vision of National Police development, as well as of a short- and long-term program of actions have to become an integral part of a competition. This will give the possibility for a society to evaluate the potential of each candidate and the objectivity of a decision of the Selection commission.
To our mind, it is worth reminding of a similar program document – Concept «100 day of quality of the National Police of Ukraine» (hereinafter – Concept) which was successfully forgotten by the very police during the reform, not to mention the civil society.
Thus, this article is dedicated to the state of implementation of the Concept which in its time was actively disseminated by the leadership of the National Police in mass media, and the main projects indicated there, had to be implemented during the first three months (!) from the day National Police started working, meaning from 07 February 2016.
According to the authors of the Concept, it is the 100-day period of time that had to become the transitional period for adaptation of all units and officers of the National Police to the new standard of quality and evaluation of work results.
The Concept contains the following projects (thematic blocks):
а) attestation (not directly mentioned in the Concept)
b) substantial transformation of criteria for police work evaluation – from quantitative to qualitative;
c) heads of territorial units of the National Police have to in the end become managers
d) project «knights of honor»;
e) center for recruiting to National Police;
f) career advancement: how the superiors get appointed;
g) formation of internal security system.
Thus, the realization of the main projects, foreseen by the Concept, as of today (meaning after more than a year of police work instead of 100 days) can be evaluated as follows:
а) attestation according to the loud police statements within the period of acting Concept all officers within the structure, particularly the leadership, had to pass the attestation. However, officially the attestation ended only in the beginning of October this year, and as of today there are many appeals against the decisions of commissions as well as lawsuits in administrative courts which, undoubtedly, are also part of attestation procedure.
Even though the attestation is only one of the stages of police reform, it demonstrated the «decisiveness» of the leadership of the National Police of Ukraine and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine to really reform the agency they are responsible for, and not just to pursue declarative reforms which we have enough of in our country. Each new minister of internal affairs, taking the office, started the imitation of reforms: issued decrees on reorganization; people, guilty of minor offences, were demonstratively released of service; name shields on offices, last names, titles etc. were changed. At the same time, just as today, there was an attestation process that had the same result of about 5-10% of officers released of service. What is the difference then between the results of the last attestation and those received during all other bureaucratical and closed departmental attestations of police officers conducted in previous years of Ukraine’s independence?
For more details, please see: 7,7% of police officers released of service – how to understand the results of the attestation
b) substantial transformation of criteria for police work evaluation – from quantitative to qualitative; Today de facto continues to exist one of the relics of the Soviet militia – «baton» system of evaluation of police effectiveness which leads to a number of human rights violations within the criminal justice system. The basis of this system is the «cases solved» indicator formed according to categories of crime components for pre-trial authorities and number of administrative protocols on certain articles for other services.
It has been almost a year and a half since the Law of Ukraine “On National Police”, defining the trust of citizens as the main criterion for evaluation of police work effectiveness, was adopted.
The old system of police evaluation is formally eliminated (cancellation of the Order №334 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of 02 April 2013), but the new, however, has not yet been introduced. Under such circumstances investigative authorities continue working by inertia – police leadership constantly asks them “How many”. It is necessary for the new system to be focused on people and their needs rather than on departmental statistics as an artificial proof of one’s work effectiveness to the hierarchy. Qualitative evaluation together with quantitative indicators based on criminal statistics is what can be the system of evaluation of police effectiveness – a vision presented in the Concept in general corresponds with this. However, neither during three months, nor during a year we made any practical steps toward its implementation. As of today the draft Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers establishing the new system is elaborated and is being approved by the State Regulatory Service. The author of article dedicated to this topic a scientific and practical publication “Evaluation of police work effectiveness: from “batons” to a new system (at the example of pre-trial investigation authorities)” (unfortunately, only in Ukrainian).
c) heads of territorial units of the National Police have to in the end become managers;
Here we are talking about getting a number of key structures out of the influence of territorial authorities of the National Police which should decrease the influence of the head of the territorial police department on the operative activity of a specific unit. In its turn this lets the heads of the such units to become effective managers. In particular, the criminal police (department on protection of economy; cyber police; department for combating drug trafficking) and the patrol police became vertically integrated and subordinated directly to the Central authority of the National Police of Ukraine. In practice, however, there were some problems with coordination of police in the field which became a discussion regarding the necessity of such vertical integration. First of all, we are talking about the patrol police. Such discussions became very active after a tragedy in village Kniazhytsi (Kyiv region) in the beginning of December, even though they were not directly related to the problem.
On 30 November pursuant to the Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers №981 a Directorate for Combating Drug Trafficking was eliminated. Its functions were transferred to departments for combating drug trafficking which will be created within the structure of each regional department of National Police. Meaning, disregard the Concept, we’re getting back to the old system of Units of Combating Illegal Drug Trafficking. It is of course to soon to raise an issue of the effectiveness of such changes, however, we do not have anymore such a preventive measure from abuses at the local level as vertical subordination.
Considering the tendency, we tend to believe that the same fate is awaiting, first of all, the Department for Protection of Economy and then the Patrol Police.
d) project «knights of honor»;
The main objective of the project «knights of honor» – identification, evaluation and training of new leaders capable to occupy leadership positions in the territorial agencies of the National Police of Ukraine. The main activity within the project is the conduction of series of thematic trainings with the aim to improve leadership qualities of participants as well as their values and ethical training. Along with this, the Head of the National Police of Ukraine has to be a direct chief of the training course.
Does a society know of the realization of this project? Mostly no. Though an official police website does have a little information on conducting trainings on stress-resistance, leadership etc. Along with this, the personnel policy of police during a year shows that the indicated approach to personnel decisions stays only on the level of a Concept but not in reality. In addition to that, there are certain legal limitations regarding staff appointments which have to approved with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.
e) center for recruiting to National Police;
The objective of the recruiting center is provision of technical assistance in selection and attestation of police officers. According to the Concept it had to be staffed with professionals which the international technical assistance project ICITAP approved.
It is hard to directly evaluate the work of the Center because there is not so much information about it. Along with this, organizational problems in the activity of attestation commissions and police commissions are the indicator of the fact that the role of the Center for Recruiting significantly differs from the one planned.
f) career advancement: how the superiors get appointed;
According to the Concept a new personnel policy of the National Police of Ukraine includes automatic appointment of heads of police to leadership positions in police.
However, the problem lies, particularly, in the fact that there are certain leverages of influence from the side of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine onto staff appointments to key positions (heads and deputy heads of structural units of the central secretariat, heads of territorial bodies) because those have to approved with the Ministry of Internal Affairs which has political but not a managerial function. This caused a number of non-transparent appointments to high positions within police during the last year. The last big example is the appointment of the Head of the Directorate General of National Police in Cherkassy region who had been for a long time rejected by the civil society.
g) formation of internal security system.
The issue of effectiveness of the Department for Internal Security is rather complicated because it is wrong to measure its activity by only a number of conducted departmental investigations.
Let us remind you that according to item 32 of the Report of the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks based on the visit to Ukraine from 04 to 10 February 2014 «investigations of violations by police internal security service are often ineffective since it is very often that officers of the same unit conduct investigations against colleagues with the aim to protect their own people sometimes take a «vow of silence».
Along with this, experts and scholars insist on creation of an independent and transparent for society mechanism of consideration of complaints regarding police violations. If disciplinary violations by police officers are investigated by the very police, the crimes, committed by them, are investigated today by the prosecution authorities, and in the nearest future – State Bureau of Investigations. Accordingly, there is a problem with concealment of crimes by police or their qualification as disciplinary misdemeanors. Thus, there is a problem with illegal detentions that has existed for a long time. However, a number of proceedings initiated according to article 371 of the Criminal Code does not exceed 60 y/y all over Ukraine, and a number of notifications on suspicion – 15 [1]. The same problem exists with unlawful violence qualified according to part 2 of article 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
In practice, internal security stays a filter, that «does not see characteristics of criminal offence» in actions of a police officer, concealing a crime this way. The reason for this is, particularly, corporate solidarity which stays particularly high today.
In particular, such possibilities are provided by the imperfect legislative basis, namely the Instruction on the Order of Conducting Departmental Investigation, approved by the Order №230 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine of 12 March 2013, which allows such actions. Let us remind you, that the representative of the Expert group mentioned reasoned proposals on reforming internal security, in particular, draft amendments to the Order №230 were prepared [2].
To our mind, a positive step was the creation of the Department for Observance of Human Rights. (DOHR) which has partly taken the functions on investigation of circumstances of offences. However, unfortunately, DOHR does not have the right to conduct departmental investigation and bring guilty to responsibility which puts them under direct dependence from the activity of internal security officers. Thus, it is too soon to talk about the mechanism of independent investigation of offences committed by police officers.
Eugene Krapyvin,
Lawyer, expert of the group “Police under Control”
[1] Number of registered proceedings/number of notifications on suspicion: 2016 (11 months) – 65/14; 2015 – 54/11; 2014 – 27/19; 2013 – 35/9.
[2] See.: Batchaev V.К. Proposals to the ways of reforming of Department for Internal Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in the book: Reforming Internal Affairs Authorities/group of authors; compiled by E.U. Zakharov; NGO «Kharkiv Human Rights Group». – Kharkiv: «Publishing House “Human Rights”», 2016 – p. 223-240; Batchaev V.K. Explanatory note to draft amendment to «Instruction on the Order of Conducting Departmental Investigations within Internal Affairs Authorities of Ukraine»/Ibid., – p. 241-245; Batchaev V.K. Comparison table to the draft amendment to «Instruction on the Order of Conducting Departmental Investigations within Internal Affairs Authorities of Ukraine». Ibid., – p. 246-261.