New law proposes added authority to PSP as ‘criminal police’

A proposal to change the current laws that govern the operations and procedures of the Public Security Police Force (PSP) has been finalized. The Executive Council’s (ExCo) analysis of the proposed change will be sent today to the Legislative Assembly (AL) to be voted upon, the spokesperson from the ExCo Leong Heng Teng, informed in a press conference held at the government headquarters yesterday.

The proposal was said to have two main purposes: to add new authority to the PSP as a “criminal police,” thus conferring on police department heads the power to, for example, take suspects into custody in the course of an investigation without the need for a warrant from a judge; and also to compile in a single law many of the powers that the police already have but “are spread among several laws and complementary regulations,” as Commissioner of the PSP, Leong Man Cheong, explained in response to media questions.

One of the new PSP heads who will be granted the new position of a Criminal Police authority is the Chief of the Traffic Department of the PSP. Leong justified this move by noting the number of cases related to “driving under influence of alcohol or drugs and similar situations.”

As the ExCo spokesperson added, “in the future, it is expected that other heads of department, like the head of the Immigration Department, would also be included in this regime.”

Although in general it was noted that most of the roles and rules remain the same, the new law will also add to the authority of the PSP who will be granted access to “information of criminal interest within the files of the Administration, the autonomous public entities and the concessionaires.” Under this measure, those called by the PSP have the duty to be present at a nominated place, otherwise, they risk prosecution under the penal code. Previously this power was only possessed by the judiciary.

Questioned on which concessionaires will be obliged to provide the PSP access to such information, the Commissioner replied, “the bus companies, as well as the ones that supply electricity, water and others.”

The proposal aims to put an end to the “Military Statute of the Security Forces” transforming it a “Force of Internal Security” of Macau. Leong Heng Teng noted that another law change establishes a new penitentiary regime in which PSP officers will be given separate imprisonment in cases when they are trialed and subjected to imprisonment sentences, which is a measure currently extended to officers of the Judiciary Police or the Judicial Magistrates.