No. 42

Share

Print

Legal Responsibility of Assistant Police Officer

09 December 2020

Varia

RiTo No. 42, 2020

  • Silva Kirsimägi

    Lecturer, Chair of Law Enforcement, Estonian Academy of Security Sciences

The article discusses the legal responsibility of assistant police officer and the supervision exercised over their activities.

During the time the assistant police officer who performs police duties on a voluntary basis participates in police activities, they are a representative of state authority whose legitimate orders are mandatory. An assistant police officer is competent to assist the police in preventing, ascertaining and countering a threat endangering public order and in eliminating a breach of public order. The author holds the position that the issues relating to the responsibility of an assistant police officer are not legally intelligible. Assistant police officer is indeed an integral part of the police system but he or she is not a police officer, that is, state public servant with regard to whom the provisions regulating an official’s liability could be applied. For example, in the cases when an assistant police officer causes damage to a person with his or her activities upon performance of his or her police duty it cannot be said unambiguously whether the assistant police officer is liable to the victim in the same manner as the police officer who gave the unlawful order as a result of which the damage was caused. The article explores whether the regulation concerning the supervision exercised over the activities of assistant police officers is legally clear and enables to check effectively the activities of assistant police officers in the performance of police duty.

Feedback