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The Victoria state policeHe dismisses arguments that dirty police are already being driven out of the force through the courts, saying the recent convictions of senior state officers on corruption charges are the tip of the iceberg.
The arrest of some corrupt police only proves that corruption is deep-seated and continuing, Stewart says.
It was revealed recently that the Office of Police Integrity (OPI) an offshoot of the Ombudsmans office was about to launch an investigation into possible links between corrupt police and organised crime, including allegations that corrupt officers had protected underworld figures.
But Stewart, who conducted three royal commissions, including one into drug trafficking that led to a national crime commission, said cleansing the Victoria Police was a Herculean task.
He debunked claims of the state police commissioner that recent corruption trials were proof that the Victorian police are upright, honest and true.
Only a wide-ranging (royal) commission will do it, Stewart concluded, echoing the views of a former royal commissioner who said that corruption in the state was at its highest level ever.
The former jurists criticism is expected to re-ignite controversy about whether the state administration has done enough to combat police corruption through the OPI.
In an editorial calling for a royal commission, The Australian newspaper says, In Victoria, the case for an open royal commission to restore public confidence is clear.
The evidence includes a series of drug-related gangland murders, video evidence of police brutality, union hostility to official investigations and secret deals between the police union and the premier (state chief minister).
Sounds so much like the state of affairs back home in India.
Can we not, possibly, adapt a leaf out of the book of the learned Australian judge to combat the cancer of corruption in our own law and order machinery?
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