Africa-Press – Lesotho. The Lesotho Maintained Punishment Service (LMPS) has done it again. It recently tortured a lawyer for hours. Were it some years back, Muckraker would have been shrieking at the police.
But the story of police brutality is now old news no matter its frequency. Journalists are taught that news is when a man bites a dog, not the other way round.
Commonplace don’t make news. Police brutality is culture and tradition. More like eating papa with cabbage in January. Writing a story about the police torturing suspects is like saying Likuena are a bunch of losers or Mamello Morison is a loud empty vessel.
The only story Muckraker wants to read now is that of a suspect torturing a policeman. That might sound like a pipedream but it will happen soon. At some point people will turn the tables on those rogues.
There will be pandemonium. A gnashing of teeth. Those without teeth will be given. But before things degenerate to such anarchical levels, Muckraker offers a simple solution to this problem.
You see, the police torture suspects because the government always pays the damages when they are sued. They do so because there are no consequences for their heinous actions.
The state will pay for their sins and life goes on. The culprits will move on to another victim. The explanation, which is patently inane, is always that the police were acting in their normal course of duty.
The idea being that they cannot be held accountable for their actions in executing their duties on the state’s behalf. It’s a crippled argument because torture is neither ‘normal course of business’ nor “an act on the state’s half”.
And for some inexplicable reason, this concept only applies to the police. Corrupt civil servants never seek such insulation when charged. No one beats a customer and claims they were acting on a company’s behalf.
The solution to this madness is to allow a pig to fry in its own fat. Rogue officers should be sued in their individual capacity. They must pay the damages from their own pocket.
Garnish their salary until the damages are paid in full. If the salary is not enough, go for their pension. If the pension and salary are not enough, take their livestock, land or anything of value.
Allow a victim to sue the police officers for everything, including underwear or fatuku. Some might say that will punish the perpetrator’s children. Well, that is the point.
Their torture also punishes the victim’s family. Victims will tell you that their lives were never the same after their ordeal at the police station. Rogue police officers should tell you that their life was never the same after they were sued for torturing someone. It’s a fair deal.
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