KEY POINTS:
The 60 recommendations of the Bazley Commission may be seen as indictment enough, but more stinging was that Dame Margaret Bazley thought it necessary to put the police force on probation.
For the next decade the State Services Commission (annual audit of police culture) and the Auditor-General (monitor implementation of Bazley's recommendations) are to look over the police force's shoulder.
The watchdog set up in 1988, the Police Complaints Authority (PCA), is on notice to lift its game.
Scott Optican, Auckland University associate law professor says the report pointed out the PCA's biggest problem its role essentially is as a reviewer of police investigations into police.
That leaves police officers investigating colleagues. Optican asks: "How can it act as an effective independent watchdog when [in practise] all it is doing is commenting on or ratifying a police investigation that's already been concluded?
"Its procedures and its mechanisms essentially defeat or undermine confidence in its purpose for being. How does it create faith and transparency in its review and watchdog process if the process itself is so secretive?"
The public's idea of an adequate PCA was an independent body that they could go to if they had a complaint against a police officer and didn't trust the police to deal fairly with it. The PCA is seen as underfunded, understaffed, often hamstrung and, when it comes to the crunch, toothless.
With no power of censure, it is restricted to delivering a ticking off (usually in private) to the police and recommending changes which the police can ignore if it believes they are unjustified.
The public is usually left in the dark about PCA business. The PCA makes public only a handful of decisions generally serious matters already in the public domain such as shootings and the police may be disinclined to announce PCA recommendations.
Among Bazley's recommendations is that it be a requirement that the Minister of Police, Attorney-General and parliament be notified whenever the police reject the PCA's criticisms.
Effective independence would ease any public perception of collusion between police and the PCA.
Both tried to curb the scope of the Bazley Commission. The PCA argued, unsuccessfully, that Bazley did not have jurisdiction to review its workings. The submission was made during Judge Ian Borrin's tenure as the PCA. He could not be contacted for comment.
Optican and Dr Warren Young at the Law Commission, are adamant the PCA has to become hands-on in investigations if it is to be effective and credible to the public. "It ought to be essentially an investigative body ... of specified categories of complaints, the more serious ones," says Young. "That would require some re-orientation of its role."
The police have, in fact, proposed that the PCA has a much bigger role. They argue it is currently unable to function as intended and that the public would remain sceptical of police inquiries into officers no matter how independent and objective they were.
Bazley disagrees. Economies of scale meant the police was best suited in most instances, including investigating allegations against officers of criminal offending.
Other than commenting that the PCA may have to seek additional resources to tackle its backlog of complaints (800, compared to a peak of 2000), Bazley does not mention funding. Her major concern as expressed in the report was the PCA's communication problems. She says it needs to increase awareness of what it does, improve accessibility and communication with complainants.
Other recommendations included:
* The Government considers boosting the PCA to a five-member authority, the majority from outside the legal profession.
* The PCA accepts historical sex assault complaints (it has not accepted any complaints relating to alleged incidents that pre-dated the Police Complaints Authority Act 1998).
* Develop ways of reducing its case backlog.
* Repeal or amend secrecy provisions of the act to ensure it doesn't unreasonably restrict information from a PCA inquiry being used in criminal proceedings.
In practise, the provisions tended to delay investigations. The provisions precluded use of evidence discovered during a PCA investigation in prosecutions. It therefore delayed its inquiry while police conducted an internal investigation.
Optican doubts tinkering will be sufficient. "I just don't think it's the right model."
The hallmarks of effective watchdogs were independence, resources, transparency and results. He suggests the Criminal Cases Review Board in England and Scotland as a good example.
"You have a panel of people in a transparent process with resources and independent investigators and you have community outreach to tell people how to make the complaints. If you have those four things you have public confidence."
Justice Lowell Goddard is the first woman to head the PCA. Less than two months into the job, she says her aim is for greater independence.
She plans to define the PCA's core business. "In my view, it is investigation and inquiry into serious matters and matters of a high public interest."
Minor matters would be dealt with by the police's disciplinary processes being built up. This should free resources to concentrate on the core business.
Goddard wants to conduct more of her own investigations using her own investigators. The PCA has five but more were needed, as was a bigger budget.
The rest of current year's budget has been released to her, enabling two additional investigators (former police officers) to join temporarily. They would work on the PCA's review of the Operation Austin investigation and assistant commissioner Clint Rickard's complaints regarding it.
Operation Austin investigated Louise Nicholas' allegations and led to Rickards being tried and acquitted of sexual crimes relating to Nicholas and another complainant.
Goddard would "seriously consider" more public release of reports and findings, provided confidentiality provisions allowed. She said it was "very important in a healthy democracy to have an independent oversight body that scrutinises policing and good for the police and their integrity".
Goddard also plans to look at the call centre set up used by the Ombudsman's office to see if it would suit the PCA and make it more accessible.
Judge Michael Lance is soon to join as Goddard's deputy. Criticism Judge Lance made of a policeman while presiding over a case in 1994 led to a PCA inquiry and to an upcoming case in which the former detective faces charges of attempting to obstruct or defeat the course of justice. The complainant in the 1994 case was Louise Nicholas.
