Dealing with Complaints against the Police in Romania, Bulgaria and Poland: A Human Rights Perspective

Abstract

In this article the functioning of the police complaints proceedings in Romania, Bulgaria and Poland is assessed from a human rights perspective. The relevant national laws are assessed in terms of the international legal standards and the complaints procedures are measured specifically against yardsticks of the systems’ effectiveness and independence. With the longest recent democratic tradition, Poland turns out to have by far the most effective system of dealing with complaints against the police. This is likely to have had a considerable impact on shaping how much the new democratic Polish police act within the rule of law. A comparison of the three countries indicates that it is the practical operational independence, rather than the formal structure of the police investigative bodies that is of significance in determining whether complaints are dealt with adequately. In the Polish system, the police investigators have an adequate capacity to carry out their work, coupled with the will to instigate both criminal and disciplinary proceedings against police officers committing such offences. It has proved an effective approach for curbing police human rights violations. As such, the Polish system can serve as a model for other Eastern European countries that are still confronted with institutionalised abuse of human rights by the police. On account of its success, Poland now appears to be in a situation in which the less serious abuses can also be dealt with more informally and less by penally oriented approaches found in some Western European models.