The Conciliation Procedure: Between Mediation and Community Policing

The conciliation procedure is a type of a complaint procedure against the work of police officers, which is - in professional circles and discussions usually referred to as mediation or an informal procedure for settling disputes between the police and a complainant (resident) or a community. The present paper points to the fact that the current version of the conciliation procedure is not and cannot be considered as mediation, since it is not based on the principles of independence and impartiality, and on standards underpinning adversarial proceedings, which ought to apply in all alternative dispute resolution proceedings. The conciliation procedure involves the verification of compliance between activities performed by the police and applicable regulations, which is initiated by the complainant, who may at the same time act as the party in the proceedings. In practice, the police are mostly reluctant when it comes to the acknowledgement of irregularities in the scope of conciliation. Police chiefs tend to justify the work or conduct of their police officers, even though the circumstances clearly show that police activities were either illegal or unacceptable at the very least. On the other hand, complainants are often expected to take the findings meagrely presented by the police chiefs on board and accept them as facts. It is therefore unsurprising that most complainants express doubts regarding the objectivity and impartiality of the conciliation procedure. Nevertheless, this paper presents and substantiates the position that dispute resolution within the police services is a welcome form of communication between the police and residents, and an important element of community policing which ought to be preserved and improved in the future. A potential abolishment of the existing concept of the conciliation procedure and the procedure before a panel, and the subsequent establishment of a complaint mechanism outside the Ministry of the Interior and the Police is a potential, albeit not necessarily the best solution.