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Letters | As Hong Kong protest nightmare worsens, an independent inquiry is Carrie Lam’s last chance to redeem herself
- Government supporters ask us to trust the IPCC, even though the panel’s own experts doubt it is up to the task
- Lam has to take the calculated risk of opening a truly independent inquiry to keep this situation from escalating further
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Make no mistake, Hong Kong is in a state of emergency. In just one morning, a police officer opened a live round, a man was set on fire and petrol bombs were thrown inside an MTR station. Then came the hours-long violent standoff at a leading university. If Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor does not want to go down in history as a “wrongdoer who would be condemned for a thousand generations”, she must immediately establish an independent commission into police conduct.
At its core, the source of discontent among the protesters is police conduct, which they view as unjustifiable. Their foremost demand is to have the police force held accountable, and only an independent commission with the power to subpoena documents and summon witnesses will address that.
However, two powerful arguments are preventing Lam from taking the necessary step to defuse the crisis. Firstly, since there is already an existing mechanism to hold the police accountable in the form of the Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC), the public should first let the IPCC do its job. Secondly, establishing such a commission would infuriate the police force, while being insufficient to cease violent protests, which risks a complete collapse in law and order. Nevertheless, both arguments are flawed.
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As the international experts’ panel advising the IPCC made abundantly clear, the IPCC is not up to the task to investigate the police force’s conduct during the protests. With the absence of strong investigative powers and the limited resources at its disposal, the existing mechanism could not effectively respond to the amount and severity of the complaints. However “well-established” the IPCC is, as Lam claims, the public could not accept anything short of a more powerful and independent framework to hold the police accountable.
Besides, although the fear that establishing an independent commission would simultaneously alienate the only law enforcement body in Hong Kong and fail to calm the protesters is justified, it is a calculated risk that Lam must take.
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