Unitary police law remains in place

The unitary police law remains in place following yesterday’s discussion by the First Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly (AL).
Yesterday, members of the committee met at the AL building to discuss the generally passed amendment of the unitary police law.
During the discussion, no lawmakers raised questions or doubts concerning any prescription, according to Ho Ion Sang, Chairman of the First Standing Committee of AL.
This means that after this meeting, the amendment made to the prescriptive remained unchanged, compared to the version passed during a previous AL plenary meeting.
The generally approved law amendment mainly concerns the Unitary Police Service’s function with regards to civil protection matters.
The amendment officially suggests that the unitary police authority will also serve as the civil protection authority, and that, as result, the bureau is expected to have an additional 75 tenured employees.
As of today, the local government has already obtained lawmakers’ preliminary approval for the amendment of the internal security protocol law. Recently, the civil protection law also came into effect.
According to Ho, the local government hopes to use the unitary police law amendment, the civil protection law and the new internal security protocols as measures to reform its current civil protection administration.
Currently, the Second Standing Committee of the AL is also discussing the amendment of the internal security protocol.
The security authority expects that the internal security protocol will come into effect at the same time as the unitary police law. The security authority has not yet decided on the date. Meanwhile, on September 15, the civil protection law came into effect.
Although yesterday’s AL standing committee did not involve substantial changes to the content of the unitary police law, the lawmakers and legal advisors of the AL have still made improvements to the wording and translation of the text of the law. For example, the title of Article 2 was changed from “Function” to “Function and Authorization,” a change the government accepted.
The civil protection law prescribes that concerned governments should share intelligence with one another. As a result, the unitary police law will also include a prescription regarding this topic.
Commenting on how the civil protection law amendment and the unitary police law amendment will protect the personal data of members of the public, Ho said that the civil protection law has regulations in regards to said protection.