Arrest—A New Balance?
| DOI | 10.1177/002201838504900405 |
| Date | 01 November 1985 |
| Author | John Williams,Philip Rawlings,John Baxter |
| Published date | 01 November 1985 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
ARREST-A
NEW BALANCE?
John Baxter, Philip Rawlings
and
John Williams*
"Indeed
aPoliceman possesses few powers not
enjoyed
by
the
ordinary
citizen,
and
public opinion, expressed in Parliament
and
elsewhere, has shown great jealousy of any
attempts
to
give increased authority to the
Police."
Royal Commission on
Police Powers
and
Procedure
1929.1
"Our
proposals on
arrest
without
warrant
have two main
and
interrelated
objectives: to restrict the circumstances in which
the
police can exercise
the
power
to deprive a
person
of his
liberty to those in which it is genuinely necessary to
enable
them
to
execute
their
duty to
prevent
the
commission of
offences, to investigate crime,
and
to bringsuspected offenders
before
the
courts;
and
to simplify, clarify
and
rationalise
the
existing
statutory
powers of arrest, confirming
the
present
rationale for
the
use of those
powers."
Royal Commission on
Criminal
Procedure
1981.2
It
is interesting to note
that
both the 1929
and
the
1981 Royal
Commissions
purport
to argue in favour of restricting
rather
than
expanding
the
power
of the police to arrest.
The
earlier
Commission
took
the
view
that
the
authority of the police should
rest
not
upon
the
possession of extensive powers,
but
rather
upon
the
"broad
basis of the consent
and
active co-operation of all
law-abiding
people.":'
The
1981
Report
attempted
to develop
the
idea
of a
"fundamental
balance"
between
the interests of the whole
community
and
the
rights
and
liberties of the individual. In
the
context
of
arrest this is
embodied
in the "necessity principle",
namely
that
the
power
to arrest should arise only where necessary
for achieving certain objectives of the criminal process.
Unfortunately,
balance as an abstract is
more
of a political cliche
•Department of Law, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.
1. Cmd. 3297 paras. 15-16.
2. Cmnd. 8092 para 3.7.
3. Op. cit. supra note I.
358
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