Brutality complaints to be directed to Ombudsman
It’s not an uncommon practice for victims of alleged police brutality to make the media rounds to show their bruises and vent their frustration. But now there is a new, preferred avenue for accusers to get official redress for their complaints. The re-instituted Police Complaints Board has now been formally placed under the control of the Ombudsman, and the scope of the facility has been widened with the inclusion of the Human Rights Commission of Belize. According to Paul Rodriguez, the new mechanism actually formalises what has been in practice for a number of years, and will make it easier for aggrieved citizens to get justice.
Paul Rodriguez, Ombudsman
?Well let me tell you that Channel Five in several cases have sent their complainants to the Ombudsman, but a member of the public may come to–if you are in Belmopan the Human Rights Commission, or go to I.A.D., the police. Or in Belize City, come to the Ombudsman directly. So there is an avenue of choice to suit the convenience of the public. One of these days we are hoping that this network will spread to all the districts and villages. But this requires a bit more resource, which at present we don?t have. So we look forward to that.?
?What the Complaints Board do is embed all of that in the office of the Ombudsman so that at any time the Ombudsman may require a member of the Internal Affairs and Discipline to attend to the mater of investigating a complaint against the police right away. As a matter of fact, already Superintendent Robert Mariano and I have started to work this way. I have already asked him to look into about five or six urgent cases, one of which I think I received on Tuesday or Monday concerning a matter that happened in Seine Bight involving a Mr. Young. So it?s already working. The difference is that now the Human Rights Commission of Belize will be able to officially receive complaints on behalf of the Complaints Board, on behalf of the of the Ombudsman and they will be able to investigate it if they so wish.?
?It?s working very efficiently now; if I may say so. What we will do is try to improve the time of delivery of service… let me tell you that some investigations are done very quickly, a day, two days, three days. We will try to reduce the average to about two weeks at the most. Right now I would say the average is about three, four weeks. We have caught up with all the backlogs from previous years. Beginning the new reporting year we only have eight open cases, and by now most of those have been disposed of. So I expect we will probably average two weeks the most.?
Patrick Jones
?How confident can the public be that this new arrangement will be transparent and will be efficient??
Paul Rodriguez
?But Patrick anytime the media, any member of the public may come to the Ombudsman and say here, I would like to see a file on so and so, and so. So even right now it?s transparent. It will be even more transparent then, but it is up to the public. You see we talk a lot about transparency, but nobody really tests it.?
Rodriguez says that last year alone, over a hundred cases of wrong doing were reported against the police.