Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/17486
Title: A critical examination of police powers under Maltese law and the need for reforms
Authors: Parnis, Simone
Keywords: Police -- Malta
Evidence (Law) -- Malta
Police power -- Law and legislation -- Malta
Police ethics -- Law and legislation -- Malta
Issue Date: 2016
Abstract: In every democratic society, the Executive Police plays a central role within the criminal justice system and forms a part of the State’s official machinery for maintaining order and upholding the rule of law while ensuring that human rights are safeguarded. In order to fulfil their obligations and duties at law, police officers are given specific powers to protect citizens. A predicament arises when such powers infringe upon individual rights in the process of this law enforcement, which enforcement has as its objective that of trying to guard and protect citizens. This is illustrated in the context of the exercise of police powers in relation to the conduct of criminal investigations, which represents an invasion of personal liberty that citizens are required to endure in the interests of the prevention and detention of crime. Nevertheless, the right to personal liberty entails that such powers should be strictly regulated, and the State must strike a balance between police powers and individual rights. This entails that the police are to be subject to tightly defined and rigorous controls, and for clear, legally guaranteed safeguards to be made available to suspects. To this effect, the overreaching objective of the thesis is to explore the problems associated with the regulation of police powers, which in practice has been proven to be insufficient with regard to criminal investigations as prescribed by the Maltese Criminal Code. An analysis of the Maltese laws regulating police powers is carried out, with particular reference to the English Peace and Criminal Evidence Act, with the intent of proposing similar legislation and police guidelines to those found in England and Wales.
Description: LL.D.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/17486
Appears in Collections:Dissertations - FacLaw - 2016
Dissertations - FacLawCri - 2016

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