KUALA LUMPUR: The Independent Police Conduct Commission (IPCC) has been a successful partner in carrying out internal oversight investigations, particularly in relation to custodial deaths.
Federal police Integrity and Standards Compliance Department (JIPS) director Datuk Seri Azri Ahmad said it was essential to emphasise IPCC's role of ensuring the completion of thorough, equitable and impartial investigations.
He said the role of IPCC provides the needed synergy for JIPS, since the department established a special unit to oversee deaths in custody investigations in 2022.
Previously, he noted, investigations were conducted locally on a district level, and the collaboration with IPCC was integral at decreasing the occurrence of reported incidents.
"Reported deaths have decreased (by half), which I believe is an achievement in instilling deterrence," said Azri during an exclusive interview on the New Straits Times' Beyond the Headlines.
He said the recorded custodial deaths in the past two years show a decline. There were 48 deaths reported in 2021 (before the involvement of JIPS), and 24 and 22 deaths reported respectively for 2023 and 2022.
When JIPS came into the picture, said Azri, the department also strengthened compliance regulations for policemen on the SOPs of being under police detention.
"It is unfair (for watchdogs) to condemn IPCC's role.
"Again, we can assert that the IPCC fulfils an independent oversight role in relation to the police where their responsibility involves conducting investigations into misconduct carried out by members of the police force."
Even before the IPCC Act was passed in Parliament in 2020, it had come under fire from various quarters who viewed it as a watered-down version of the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) which was recommended by the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police in 2005.
The IPCMC Bill was, in fact, tabled in the Dewan Rakyat in 2019, but this was later pulled and replaced with the IPCC Bill.
Detractors say the IPCC, of which there are currently five members with another two slots yet to be filled, does not have enough powers accorded to it.