POLICE ACT CHANGES STRENGTHEN COMPLAINT PROCESS

The Province has introduced a comprehensively revised Police Act to ensure effective oversight of and public confidence in the police complaint process and B.C.’s municipal forces, which serve jurisdictions that are home to about one quarter of B.C.’s population. The RCMP, which polices the rest of the province, is covered by a separate, federal complaint process.

The amendments will implement extensive recommendations advanced by then-former Justice Joe Wood in his Report on the Review of the Police Complaints Process in B.C., released in February 2007. Wood’s review included a random sample audit of 300 closed complaint files, of which he believed 20 per cent could have been better handled or concluded.

Significant changes to the act cover aspects of the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (PCC), the complaints process and the duties of parties to it. Specific sections address police misconduct, complaint filing, investigations, discipline, informal resolution and mediation, contemporaneous monitoring of investigations by the PCC, and reviewing decisions.

Beyond details in the accompanying news release, notable sections of the new act include the following:

· Section 106 makes it an offence to obstruct or interfere with an investigating officer. This is consistent with and reinforces the act’s response to two of Wood’s recommendations: requiring police officers to co-operate with investigations and making failure to co-operate a discreditable conduct.

· Under Section 110, police officers who are suspended are entitled to be heard by appearing before a police board before it can order them suspended without pay.

· Section 112 requires police chiefs or other discipline authorities to decide, within 10 business days of the filing of a final investigation report, whether the matter has been substantiated and whether a discipline proceeding will follow.

· Under Section 114, police officers under investigation may request further investigation. This is to ensure investigations are complete before a discipline proceeding, and that the resulting record of the proceeding is complete and sufficient to enable a review based on it.

· Under Section 117, the PCC may appoint a retired judge to review a police chief’s report if the PCC disagrees with its findings or no misconduct was substantiated. This option will further support the integrity of disciplinary decisions.

· Section 118 requires a police chief to convene a discipline proceeding within 40 business days of receiving a final investigation report.

· Section 119 requires a police officer or former officer under investigation to promptly file with the police chief a request to call and examine witnesses at the discipline proceeding. This will help in cases involving conflicting witness testimony.

· While discipline proceedings will continue to be heard in camera, to protect complainants’ interests, the PCC must approve the time and location of a proceeding, civilian witnesses may have a support person accompany them, and the PCC may appoint an observer.

· Section 125 requires discipline authorities to render decisions about allegations within 10 business days of a discipline proceeding concluding, and to provide a copy to the PCC.

· Consistent with a Wood recommendation, the maximum suspension without pay for misconduct increases to 30 days from five, under Section 126.

· Under Section 137, police officers will be entitled to a review on the record or a public hearing if the police chief proposes dismissal or reduction in rank.

· The PCC must arrange a public hearing or review of the record in certain circumstances – for example, if the PCC believes a police chief has erred in findings or applying discipline. Section 142 sets out how a retired judge will be appointed adjudicator for such a hearing or review.

· Although a police officer or former officer who is the subject of a proceeding cannot be compelled to testify as a witness, Section 151 allows a police chief to draw an adverse influence if they refuse. All other witnesses can be compelled to testify.

· Under Section 153, the PCC can cancel a public hearing or review of the record that he or she has initiated, if new evidence or other factors mean proceeding is no longer in the public interest.

The Wood Report also encouraged resolving complaints by informal means, including mediation, where possible. To this end, Division 4 of the new act mirror’s Wood’s proposed procedure. The legislation also gives the PCC the freedom to issue guidelines to further structure how complaints may be resolved by mediation and other informal means.

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Media contact:	Cindy Rose Public Affairs Bureau 250 356-6961

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