The Police Professionals Union Association (ASPP/PSP) refused this Sunday, following an order from the Mayor of Lisbon for the Municipal Police to detain suspected criminals, that agents be “pushed into actions that could harm them”.
In a note, the ASPP/PSP considered that the statements by Carlos Moedas (PSD), that he “gave orders to members of the Municipal Police to detain” criminal suspects, “incurred in a rush and are not in line with the competences of a mayor (orders), nor with the legal framework that supports the exercise of municipal police (arrests)”.
In this sense, he reiterated that, in defense of PSP professionals, including those who work in the municipal police of Lisbon and Porto, “you cannot allow professionals to be pushed into actions that could harm them”.
The ASPP added that it was also “surprising to see the way in which many reacted and commented on such statements” or “the concrete situation of the municipal police of Lisbon and Porto”, which are “police of an administrative nature, despite being staffed by PSP professionals on a commission of service”.
“This situation has persisted for a long time, with greater gravity in the constitutional abuse of such professionals — not being able to be represented in any type of union, not police, or any other”, the note highlights.
Now, for ASPP, the fact that “the municipal police (including those of Lisbon and Porto) are administrative police and have no criminal competence”, means that, in order to arrest, it is necessary for “these arrests to be handed over to the competent authority”, in the PSP case.
In other words, even though they are made up of elements from the PSP (criminal police body), “it does not change the legal regime that supports the activity and functioning” of these police forces.
For ASPP, it would be interesting for “mayors, central power and civil society” to have “a serious and in-depth discussion about the Portuguese internal security model”, to “regulate entropy, disinvestment” in security forces, and “respect limits, including civilian ones, and preserve the difference between internal security and national defense.”
The union structure pointed out that “more serious” is seeing “the perpetuation of the lack of union representation” of PSP professionals because they are on service commission in the municipal police.
Therefore, taking into account the existence of a legal opinion from the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI), which “concluded the right to freedom of association in the municipal police of Lisbon and Porto”, the ASPP management appealed “again so that the National Directorate of the PSP to reestablish (democratic) normality”, considering “in representation” the police officers on service commission in those police forces.
The PS and the Left Bloc in the Lisbon City Council also criticized on Thursday the order for the Municipal Police to detain criminal suspects, considering that it “diverts resources” from monitoring traffic, noise and works in the city.
In response, the mayor reiterated the order he gave to the Municipal Police to detain citizens in cases of flagrant crime, revealing that “there have been many cases, unfortunately, in which this surrender under arrest is carried out within the law”.
The social democrat stressed that his request to the Government “is to change the law so that a municipal police officer, who is a PSP” – when he finds someone stealing on the street, when there is an act of vandalism or a crime – can catch that person “and take him to the police station”.
According to the legislation, the Municipal Police “is a municipal service specially designed to carry out administrative police functions”, which has, above all, supervisory powers.
Despite not being a criminal police body, the Municipal Police has the authority to “detain and immediately hand over, to the judicial authority or police entity, suspects of a crime punishable by a prison sentence, in the case of a flagrant crime, under the terms of criminal procedural law”.
Source: www.jornaldenegocios.pt
