AG slams AFC’s civilian police proposal as “pure dotishness”

The Alliance For Change (AFC) has disclosed that if it wins the upcoming elections, it will move to establish a civilian-led body with powers equivalent to the Guyana Police Force (GPF), including the authority to investigate officers and execute searches on those suspected of misconduct.
This was revealed by AFC leader and presidential candidate Nigel Hughes during a news conference on Friday. “It will be a civilian-led body of professional investigators…the investigators will be trained persons in the art of investigating; they will have trained prosecutors who are probably going to be lawyers who will prosecute those cases. The cases will be presented to the court and what happens there, is the gathering of evidence,” he explained.
“It’s not that they will have any superior powers to the Guyana Police Force. They will have equivalent powers. Just as how the Guyana Police Force has the power to get a search warrant and come and search your house where there’s reasonable suspicion, this body will have investigators who are qualified, who are equally empowered to go, apply for a warrant and search officers who may be suspects in criminal activity,” Hughes further noted.
The announcement was ridiculed by the country’s Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall. In an invited comment, Nandlall told this publication that “these politicians seem to be bankrupt of realistic and pragmatic programmes.” “You’d recall I said both on the political platform and on “Issues in the News” that electors must be wary of politicians putting dotishness to them during this elections campaign. What Mr Hughes is advocating there is an example of what I’m speaking about,” he contended.
According to the AG, this proposal by the AFC does not make sense.
“So, who will investigate this agency now? What guarantee do we have that this agency will not run amok?” he questioned.
“This is just an attempt to sound sophisticated. It’s pure dotishness,” Nandlall said.
The GPF is the country’s primary law enforcement agency.