Police

2025 SCMR 1461 SUPREME-COURT-OF-UK Judicial Precedent

PoliceMisconductSelf-defencePolice officer shooting and killing a suspect under the mistaken belief that suspect armedWhether officer guilty of gross misconduct for using unreasonable force

Whether reasonableness of force to be assessed by reference to criminal law test relating to self-defence or civil law test

Held, that the test to be applied in disciplinary proceedings in relation to the use of force by a police officer in self-defence is the civil law test.

2021 PLC(CS) 179 KARACHI-HIGH-COURT-SINDH Judicial Precedent

Object, purpose and scope

In the perspective of every citizen and public at large, good police or bad police both really carry some weight and importance

State was responsible to eliminate and eradicate crime, provide protection to person and property and in order to perform such fundamental responsibilities good policing is necessary which can only be possible if good police officers are posted on merits and allowed to combat against crimes and social evil with accountability but not on the basis of Sifarish, favoritism or nepotism or with abrupt removal from place of posting with preconceived notion or confrontation and hostility which creates uncertainty

En masse, police is answerable to people and the law

Honesty, integrity, nice behavior and sober mannerism must be part of ethical practice which is quite essential for good policing and good police officers

Good police officers must not only be upright officers but also good citizens as well and should have the audacity and nerve to listen all persons equally especially to those without social power or status

Everyday job of police includes enforcement of laws, prevention of crimes, protection of person and property, investigation of crimes and to respond emergency calls

Making good laws by the corridors of power in public interest is so virtuous and a good deed but if laws are not implemented in its letter and spirit with the interest of bringing some improvements and or revamping or restructuring in any institution then such situation leads to lawlessness and turmoil affecting public at large.

2018 SCMR 845 SUPREME-COURT-OF-UK Judicial Precedent

Duty of carePolicePolice officers causing injury to passer-by while attempting to arrest an accused on a busy street

Question as to whether duty of care was owed to passers-by, and whether police was immune from claims in negligence for injuries caused in course of performing core duties

Two police officers tried to arrest an accused in a busy shopping street when a struggle took place, during which the three men fell on top of the claimant, an old woman aged 76, who was passing by

Claimant suffered injuries as a result and sought damages against the defendant Chief Constable police for personal injuries on the grounds of negligence by the two police officers

Trial judge held that the police officers had acted negligently, since there was a foreseeable risk that passers-by such as the claimant would be injured and they had failed to have regard to the safety of members of the public in the vicinity, but dismissed the claim on the grounds that the police had immunity against claims in negligence

Court of Appeal dismissed the claimant's appeal and held that no duty of care was owed by the police and that, even if the officers had owed the claimant such a duty, on the facts it would not be fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty towards individual members of the public on the police engaged in their core function

Validity

[Per Lord Reed, JSC: There was no general rule that the police were not under any duty of care when discharging their functions of preventing and investigating crime, and they generally owed a duty of care when such a duty arose under ordinary principles of the law of negligence unless statute or the common law provided otherwise

Applying said principles, they might be under a duty of care to protect an individual from a danger of injury which the police themselves had created, but the police were not normally under a duty of care to protect individuals from a danger of injury which the police had not themselves created, including injury caused by the acts of third parties, in the absence of circumstances such as an assumption of responsibility

Discussion of policy considerations was not a routine aspect of deciding cases in the law of negligence, and was unnecessary when existing principles provided a clear basis for the decision, as in the present case

Facts of the present case were concerned with a positive act by the police and not an omission

Reasonably foreseeable risk of injury existed if an arrest of a suspect was attempted in a busy shopping street in a city center at a time when pedestrians, especially physically vulnerable ones such as the claimant, might be knocked into and injured in the course of the suspect attempting to escape; and this was sufficient to impose on the police officers a duty of care towards pedestrians, including the claimant, in the immediate vicinity when the arrest was attempted

Chain of events which had resulted in the claimant being injured had been initiated by the attempt to arrest the accused

Chain of causation had not been interrupted by the accused's voluntary decision to resist arrest, which had resulted in his knocking into the claimant

Such act of the suspect was the very act which the police were under a duty to guard against, and accordingly, the claimant had been injured as a result of being exposed to the very danger from which the police officers had a duty to protect her

Trial judge was entitled to find negligence on the part of the police, which findings should be restored

Chief Constable police/defendant was liable to the claimant for damages to be assessed]

[Per Lord Mance, JSC agreeing with his own reasons: It would be unrealistic to suggest that, when recognizing and developing an established category of negligence the courts were not influenced by policy considerations

In recognizing the existence of any generalized duty in particular circumstances, courts were making policy choices, in which considerations such as proximity and fairness, justice and reasonableness must inhere

It was not possible to state absolutely that policy considerations may not shape police liability where the conduct of the police may be analysed as positive, rather than simply as involving some form of omission

Courts should now recognise the direct physical interface between the police and the public, in the course of an arrest placing an innocent passer-by at risk, as falling within a now established area of general police liability for positive negligent conduct which foreseeably and directly inflicted physical injury

Present case concerned a positive act, not an omission

Finding of the Trial judge on negligence should be restored]

[Per Lord Hughes, JSC agreeing with his own reasons: Whilst there remains a duty of care imposed on police officers not by positive action to occasion physical harm or damage to property which ought reasonably to be avoided, there was no duty of care towards victims, witnesses or suspects in the manner of the investigation of offences or the prevention of crime

No duty of care existed to protect individuals from harm caused by the criminal acts of third parties, however, where action was brought on the basis of physical harm done by the positive acts of the police, it would succeed if, but only if, negligence was proved

Present case was one of positive act, namely arresting the accused, which directly caused physical harm to the claimant

It mattered not that the accused was the first to be in physical contact with the claimant given that the collision with her was by him plus two of the policemen

Finding of negligence by the Trial judge had to be restored and case remitted to the court of trial for assessment of damages].

2001 PLC(CS) 725 SUPREME-COURT Judicial Precedent

Duties and functions of police force discussed.