5. Letter to the Clerk of the Committee from the Parliamentary Relations Team, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
COMMONWEALTH EXPERT GROUP ON POLICING
Thank you for your letter of 19 September. You asked for a note on the Government's policy on moves to establish a Commonwealth Expert Group on policing.
We are in favour of this idea, and hope that the idea of the Commonwealth building on its excellent work on policing will be taken up at the Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala in November. We are planning to raise the issue at a meeting of Commonwealth senior officials level this week. An Expert Group, or similar mechanism could be instrumental in, for example, developing a code of conduct for police throughout the Commonwealth, as well as helping those countries most in need with capacity building assistance.
It is worth noting the work which the Commonwealth has already carried out in this area. The Commonwealth Secretariat's Human Rights Training Programme for Police has been working with police trainers to allow human rights to become a natural part of regular police, and prison officer, training. The programme was pioneered in West Africa (Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Gambia and Sierra Leone) in 2005 and led to the publication of the Unit's Manual on Human Rights Training for Police, for Commonwealth-wide application in the training of police. A number of other countries have since benefited, with training for police trainers from Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Maldives, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, Swaziland, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia. In addition, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and Commonwealth Foundation have been working together on a two-year project to increase police accountability in Ghana.
Richard Cooke
Head
Parliamentary Relations Team
8 October 2007
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