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“Challenge: Developing from a force, considered for too long to be part of the armed forces, to a service that maintains the peace, protects law and order and serves the public of Somaliland. Having a civilian police force (and prisons service) was the norm until after the independent State of Somaliland entered into a union with Somalia. The Military Dictatorship further entrenched the notion of a ‘militarised’ police force in its first police law, the 1972 Organisation of the Police Force Law, which also confirmed the repeal of the 1958 Somaliland Police Force law. We explore below the Somaliland police laws from the early formation of a civilian police force in the 19th century, but principally form the turn of the 20th century until the formation of a nation-wide force in 1927 to the updated police laws in the 1950s and through the period of union with Somalia to the post 1991 Somaliland police laws and the current 2017 Police Force Law which is undergoing further controversial amendments. It is our considered view that re-adoption of a Somaliland civilian police force, is more in line with the Article 124 of the Somaliland Constitution and would solve some of the controversial issues that delayed the passage of a widely accepted police law”. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
05 July 2019: The new consolidated Somaliland Police Force (Amendments and Additions) Law (Law No. 63/2013 (2019) which replaces the 2017 Law has, as set out in Article 50 of the Law come into force on its signature by the President on 17 May 2019 and was gazetted in a special issue of the Somaliland Gazette dated 1 June 2019. The gazetted copy of the law is available here: Xeerka Wax-ka-beddelka iyo Kaabista Xeerka Ciidanka Booliska -Xeer Lr. 63/2013 (2019) - A copy of the Law in Somali with the Arrangements of the Articles is available here: Xeerka Wax ka beddelka & Kaabista Xeerka Ciidanka Booliska (2019) SLLAW Many article of the this amended Law are still the 2017 Law provisions which have been consolidated with the new amendments. We shall posting here and An English language transalation which will be largely based on our previous translation of the 2017 repealed law.
The Somaliland Police Force Law (Law No. 63/2013 (2017)) which came into force on its signature by the President on 24 December 2017 [REPEALED WITH EFFECT FROM 17 MAY 2019 - SEE ABOVE]. This copy of the Law includes our own addition of the arrangements of the articles in both Somali and English. The gazetted copy of the Law is also available here Xeerka Ciidanka Booliska Somaliland Lr. 63/2013(2017) [Repealed].
We have also prepared the following two Compilations (with introductions) of Somaliland’ s current and past police laws for reference:
The central message is this: “It unlikely, In our view, that some of the modest police accountability issues that the HoR was seeking to introduce can be achieved until we go back to the early 2011 version of Police Bill which aimed to re-instate a Somaliland civil, and not ‘military’ police force. Sadly, the 2017 Law’s unequivocal statements that the ‘Police Force shall … form part of the armed forces of the Republic of Somaliland’ (Art. 5) and that ‘[t]he President is, in accordance with Article 90 of the Constitution of the Republic of Somaliland, the Commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Republic of Somaliland of which the Police Force forms a part’ appear not have been critically scrutinised by the House of Representatives (HoR) which was seeking other very modest reforms. A military force, by its nature, is accountable only to its command structure and ultimately to its commander in chief. Police forces in democratic countries appreciate legitimate monitoring by statutory or public non-police committees or individuals and accept the importance of such accountability to the cementing of good relations with the public. A return to modernised new versions of the ‘civil’ police laws of Somaliland (which were finally only repealed in 1972) will ensure that the military dictatorship laws are finally swept away, as enjoined by Art. 13(5) of the Somaliland Constitution and will further strengthen the current good police-community relations. Additionally, repealing the outdated provisions of the Penal Code that are no longer in step with the provisions of the Somaliland Constitution would lessen police involvement in controversial issues. It will also be well worthwhile taking note of the modern developments of the (civilian) police laws of African and Asian commonwealth countries that, in the past, had police laws similar to those of the 1960 State of Somaliland.’ FOR MORE SEE THE FOLLOWING: Introduction and Background of the 2017 Police Force Law – back to the basics ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ OLD BELLOW - to be updated. The Republic of Somaliland Police Force
The Republic of Somaliland Police Force was re-established with effect from 2 November 1993. The earlier laws relating to the Somaliland Police, as far as we can ascertain, were:
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