The return of the police state
February 26, 2014, By KNews, Filed Under Features/Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source
In a most shocking development, the Alliance For Change (AFC) has indicated that it is willing to back a proposal from A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) for police and customs officers to be granted powers to search and detain currency in excess of US$10,000 once reasonable cause is given.
Is the AFC serious? Is APNU serious? What constitutes reasonable cause? The police and custom officers can give any reason for a search and say that reason constitutes reasonable cause. They can state they are suspicious or that the individual from whom the currency was seized was acting nervous and in their estimation this constitutes reasonable cause of criminal enterprise.
How will someone who is stopped on the roadway and has his currency and jewellery seized decide whether the explanation offered by the police constitutes reasonable suspicion?
The complainant cannot debate the police and custom officers. He cannot argue back. If he refuses to hand over his money on the basis that he does not consider the grounds for the search as reasonable, he will be in big trouble. To do so would constitute resisting arrest. He can be thrown in the lockups and placed before the courts for resisting arrest. The only thing that he can do is to allow his currency to be taken away and then file action in the courts challenging his arrest. This will take time and in the meantime, he cannot access his jewellery or his cash.
If APNU and the AFC have their way in empowering police and custom officers to detain and seize currency, they will end up creating a police state. Guyana will be thrown two decades backwards when having certain food items was considered contraband.
Any powers granted to the police and customs officers to seize currency in excess of two million dollars constitutes deprivation of poverty and this is unconstitutional. It is the police and the custom officers who have to prove that the funds seized are illegal in order for them to legitimize the seizure of currency.
You cannot grant powers for police and custom officers to seize the property of others without then first establishing that the property is illegal. It is for the police and customs officers to do this in order to avoid being guilty of arbitrarily depriving someone else of poverty. It is not for the person who has two million in jewellery and cash to prove where he got his money.
The powers that the AFC and APNU wish to place in the hands of the police and custom officers will encourage bribery. It will lead to a police state in Guyana and force capital flight causing extreme hardship and devaluing the Guyana dollar.
If the purpose of legislation is money laundering, then the opposition parties have to ask themselves which person launders money in cash. It is not the money launderers that are going to be nabbed by the police and custom officers. It will be legitimate citizens who are forced to carry around large quantities.
Imagine transporting the proceeds from your business to the bank and you are detained by a law enforcement officer who says that he has suspicions about the source of the funds. This poor businessman then has to go through the trouble of proving that this is his business proceeds or he is taking money to pay his workers in the interior where there are no banks. Or he has to buy stocks from a timber grant who does not accept cheques.
Imagine the headaches what this law as approved by APNU and the AFC will create in this country. It will put citizens at the mercy of the law enforcement officers, and all the while those who are laundering funds through land acquisitions and through importation of goods will be smiling all the way to the bank.
If APNU and the AFC have their way, police and custom officers will be smiling more brightly than they did when there was the virtual ban of flour. It was this ban and the powers that were granted to the police that allowed corruption to fester within the police force and the Customs.
Imagine if we return to the days when if you called the police to report a crime taking place, they would make an excuse about not having transportation. But call and tell them that your neighbour next door has contraband, and they will be in front of your neighbour’s house faster than you can say “Flash Gordon!”
Crime is going to increase because the law officers will be more concerned with stopping and searching persons to see how much cash and jewellery they are walking around with rather than going after the criminals.
If this is the AFC and APNU’s idea of how to fight money laundering, then we have more problems than we thought.