Increase in police powers opposed

Press, 31 October 1979, Page 6

Increase in police powers opposed

PA Wellington Opposition to the Police Amendment Bill and the Crimes Amendment Bill (No. 2) was expressed b> the Council for Civil Liberties in submissions to Parliament’s Statutes Revision Committee’ • yesterday. The Police Amendment Bill, gives the police general , power to search people in i custody, and to take from • them any money or property I found during a search. • The Crimes Amendment i Bill (No. 2) empowers the I police to have doctors make internal searches of suspectsj where there is reason to sus-| pect a person has secreted within his or her body evi-' dence of an offence, or any [ other money or property ofwhich the possession consti-' tutes an offence. Tn submissions on the; Police Amendment Bill, the 1 'chairman of the Council fori ! Civil Liberties. Mr N. B. ■ Dunning, a Wellington law-i i yer. said that the council; I opposed the arbitrary power of search on arrest which the bill authorised. The council submitted that the general power of search was wrong in principle. “If the power to search is io be limited, the only point at which it can or should be limited is by the requirement that there first be suspicioin of the presence of weapons or evidence,” Mr Dunning said. The public had no protec-: tion against the unreasonable use of force, and only limited and somewhat meaningless

protection against excessive force, he said. “As drafted, the bill fails to clarify to the public or the police that unreasonable or excessive use of force will not be tolerated, and sanctions against this should be incorporated in the legislation.”

Mr Dunning said that the bill gave no protection against street searches. “If the police decided to search demonstrators in a

bus> citj street, they would under this legislation, be quite tree to do so. because it would then be a place used temporarily for polite pur - poses.” he said tn submissions on the . Crimes Amendment Bill, the ■’ council said that it accepted that internal examination of ! suspects might be necessarv 'occasionally, but it did not 'accept that such internal inspection should be done merely on police authority. “A direct parallel exists between internal body searches I and the search of private ; property.” Mr Dunning said j "Both are direct violations of i privacy, and because they 1 permit abuse of the powers created thereby are deserving ■of similar safeguards. 1 "Body searches should 'only be made at the direc .tion of a magistrate or judge who was satisfied of their ■ necessity to get evidence of i any offence for which there ■ was a penalty of more than one year's imprisonment, and ; where it was believed on reasonable grounds that such an offence had been committed.” Mr Dunning said that the bill in its present form per mitted interna! body search in respect of any offence. “It would have been undesirable to limit the type jof search for any category of offence — for example, drug offences — but it is equally undesirable to make such a requirement in the case of minor offences, and for that reason the council submits that it be available only in respect of offences carrying penalties of more than one year's imprisonment,” he said.

The council said that there should be the additional element of “necessity” before such a direction could be made. This was suggested because it was believed that the requirement of “reasonable cause for suspicion” did not afford adequate protection, by itself, against the abuse of the power.