Police watchdog the IPCC has enough teeth, new chairman insists
Controversial new chairman of the IPCC backs away from predecessor's call for the body to be allowed to instigate investigations itself
The new head of the police watchdog has backed away from his predecessor's view that it should seek the power to start its own investigations.
Larry Kwok Lam-kwong said he believed it would be more appropriate for the government to "ponder" whether any broadening of powers for the Independent Police Complaints Council was needed.
"Personally, I think the IPCC should continue to focus on working within its current statutory powers," Kwok said. The IPCC's powers are limited to overseeing, monitoring and reviewing the investigation of public complaints by the force's in-house Complaints Against Police Office. Kwok's predecessor, senior counsel Jat Sew-tong, said last month that the statutory body should study whether it could operate like the Office of the Ombudsman, which can launch its own investigations.
Last month's appointment of Kwok, a corporate finance solicitor with mainland political connections, prompted concerns his background might compromise the IPCC's impartiality.
Yesterday, a leading human-rights activist said Kwok's stance gave the impression his mission was to "defang" the watchdog.
"The IPCC should not just wait for complaints to come in," said Icarus Wong Ho-yin, of the Civil Human Rights Front.
No meaningful monitoring of the 28,000-strong police force was possible, Wong said, if the police watchdog was not given power like that of the Audit Commission to launch its own investigations, at least into complaints of a more serious nature.