{"id":44030,"date":"2013-02-04T13:04:07","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T13:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=44030"},"modified":"2013-03-08T13:07:16","modified_gmt":"2013-03-08T13:07:16","slug":"human-rights-are-not-an-impediment-to-effective-policing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=44030","title":{"rendered":"“Human rights are not an impediment to effective policing”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> Index on Censorship’s Kirsty Hughes talks to Sir Hugh Orde, one of the UK’s most senior police officers, about protest, public order and politics<\/strong>
\n
\nSir Hugh Orde is one of the most senior police figures in the UK. As President of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), a post he took up in 2009, Sir Hugh coordinates strategic policing and police development across the police forces of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Before that he was Chief Constable of the Northern Ireland Police Service for 7 years, overseeing the implementation and follow up of the Good Friday Agreement.<\/p>\n

Sir Hugh was pipped at the post in 2011 as a candidate to be the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, by Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. Some suggest Sir Hugh\u2019s blunt style may have cost him political support — though he is often labelled the police\u2019s favourite police officer.<\/p>\n

Sporting a pink striped tie against a blue striped shirt, Sir Hugh is welcoming, friendly and loquacious in his rather austere office just up the road from Scotland Yard in central London. And as we talk, he is indeed blunt. Some of his comments have a hard edge and he gives the impression of a man who takes no hostages but has a sharp political sense.<\/p>\n

Sir Hugh describes ACPO as \u201cthe glue that holds national policing together\u201d. From briefing newly elected police commissioners to coordinating national police responses to terrorist threats, it is a wide and demanding brief, not least as chief constables all volunteer, on top of their day job, to lead different areas for ACPO where national coordination is needed. As Sir Hugh told the Leveson Inquiry<\/a>: \u201cIn the absence of a federal model of policing [ACPO] provides a voluntary structure to secure national agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Human rights and free speech<\/h5>\n

In the UK, the police are, in theory, part of a system that defends our individual and collective human rights — including the right to free speech, and the freedom of assembly and association. Yet the police\u2019s commitments to human rights in practice is, inevitably questioned as real life events unfold. Meanwhile, parts of the British media and frequently suggest our human rights laws and commitments are undermining common sense policing and democratic decision-making, or risking our security.<\/p>\n

Sir Hugh is clear and liberal-sounding on the overarching principle. Free expression and human rights are, he insists, \u201ca function of good policing\u2026human rights are not an impediment to effective policing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a hard underpinning to this view: \u201cThose who want cheap tilts at the Human Rights Act<\/a> paint it as an impediment; it\u2019s the opposite. We use lethal force — compliant with article two — so it\u2019s flawed to say it\u2019s an impediment.\u201d Article two sets out the right to life, but also allows police to use no more force than \u201cabsolutely necessary\u201d to arrest someone or in tackling a riot. This can cover cases where deaths occur. Sir Hugh\u2019s is not a soft defence of the Human Rights Act.<\/p>\n

Nor does he see security and police openness in providing information necessarily as trade-offs: \u201cThe biggest national threats without question are cybercrime and terrorism\u201d he says. But he thinks transparency, as far as possible, is part of tackling these threats \u201cso you only don\u2019t talk [about them] if you absolutely can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

The harder challenge in policing free expression is where there may be calls to constrain free speech or the right to protest. There are a number of laws that give police the option or even the requirement to step in — some, such as section 5 of the Public Order Act are broadly phrased and mean the police have a lot of leeway (although \u2018insulting\u2019 language is now to be taken out of the Act<\/a>). \u00a0Sir Hugh admits frankly that where and whether to constrain rights can be a \u201cnightmare \u2013 the first default is to call the police\u201d. He\u00a0 underlines the importance of discretion in policing and argues \u201ccops tolerate a lot\u201d. He adds: \u201cif we enforced everything, there would be no cops on the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having faced the challenges in Northern Ireland of how to manage the right to protest in the face of major community tensions, Sir Hugh is clear that these rights are not absolute: \u201cThese are conditional rights not unconditional rights — you can\u2019t just ride roughshod over others\u2026.you have to manage that very difficult territory.\u201d When pushed he admits that the tactic of kettling \u201cis pretty hard edged\u201d but adds: \u201cWe have used containment in football stadium for decades, and no one complained.\u201d<\/p>\n

Public sensitivity to offence is, Sir Hugh thinks, on the rise not least in the context of some recent high profile prosecutions of \u2018offensive\u2019 speech on social media: \u201cThe expectation of citizens that the police will act if they are insulted has increased, especially if it\u2019s personal and hurtful.\u201d He thinks the interim guidelines<\/a> issued last December by the Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer, which aim to rein in the number of such prosecutions, will be \u201chelpful\u201d and does not want police time taken up policing \u201cevery insulting comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But laws, he insists, are the realm of government: \u201cWe don\u2018t lobby\u201d he says. \u201cWe act on laws as the government creates them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says frontline officers \u201chave never been so well trained\u201d and do understand their responsibilities in defending and protecting human rights, and using discretion and judgement. But he thinks \u201cwith 20 per cent cuts, training tends to go\u201d \u2013 and describes the cuts facing the police as their \u201cbiggest challenge\u201d.<\/p>\n

Costs can be a key issue for free expression; if there\u2019s a major protest against a play or an exhibition, the policing that may be needed isn\u2019t necessarily provided free. But should we have to pay to have our human rights defended? \u201cAs a chief constable\u201d says Sir Hugh \u201cI\u2019d be prepared to have a conversation about it. But it\u2019s not necessarily wrong for someone dealing with a commercial event to make a contribution if others are put at risk because we shift resources.\u201d We have to balance, he says, the human rights principles of the right to be protected with ever more limited resources.<\/p>\n

Police and the Press<\/h5>\n

Sir Hugh is clearly pleased with the findings of Lord Justice Leveson\u2019s inquiry<\/a> that there were some wrong judgements and decisions by police but no pervasive corruption or lack of integrity. He bristles slightly at the suggestion Leveson let the police off lightly, saying Leveson is a judge who \u201cfollows evidence and there is none to leap from individual actions to root and branch failure to police media relations.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also argues that most police-media relations have been for the most part unproblematic: \u201cA lot of cops gave evidence to Leveson and the vast majority described an utterly proper professional relationship with the press\u2026and meeting to discuss over tea or a pint of beer is OK, proper and proportionate.\u201d He is not concerned with Leveson\u2019s suggestion that there shouldn\u2019t be off the record briefings: \u201cI think it [\u2018off the record\u2019] became misunderstood as secret, clandestine, and Leveson was trying to take the heat out of it.\u201d But he insists that there will be briefings that are not for the public or for background context.<\/p>\n

He has some sharp words for the press too, emphasising the difference in public trust ratings for police compared to journalists. \u201cIf you look at the polls…you see the public feel quite powerless.\u201d The police, he says, deal with victims, such as \u201cpeople dealing with massive grief and utterly unused to the media\u201d and if there is a public interest in intrusion that is, he thinks, for journalists to justify. But if media behaviour is \u201chorrendous, unfair, then the public must have a right to complain.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, Sir Hugh thinks the United Kingdom is doing OK compared to other countries in the world: \u201cIf you walk outside and talk on the street corner you are very unlikely to get arrested —- isn\u2019t that the point?\u201d The British model, he believes, is built around tolerance, \u201cthough that\u2019s not to say sometimes there is not a hard edge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tolerance with a hard edge — perhaps a good summary of Sir Hugh\u2019s approach to policing our rights. But where that hard edge is placed and how it is interpreted on the ground will continue to be a central question for whether free expression and other rights are adequately defended by the police.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Kirsty Hughes is Chief Executive of Index on Censorship<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Index on Censorship’s Kirsty Hughes<\/strong> talks to Sir Hugh Orde<\/strong>, one of the UK’s most senior police officers, about protest, public order and politics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[986,37,5171,7427,2931,5327,5033],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44030"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44030"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44738,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44030\/revisions\/44738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}