Police Powers in the face of Consent
Alair P. Shepherd & Kareen C. Cole
It is beyond credible dispute that a good deal of policing is achieved with the compliance of well-meaning and law-abiding Citizens. ... ...
The argument has also be made that what often masquerades as consent to police detention, search and entry is nothing more than a fear of authority, which ought not to form a sound basis for waiver of a constitutional right. Wholesale or even principal reliance on pusillanimity and ignorance of one's rights for the achievement of criminal law enforcement objectives poses an affront in a democracy whose liberties and freedoms are safeguarded at the highest level..
Other justices have espoused the related viewpoint that the provision of powers is necessary to signify the State's esteem and high regard for the individual's rights by permitting circumscription of those rights only by the process of law. A State who did not deem it fit to provide a legal framework for the limited and reasoned suspension of and incursion in its constitutional rights would be hard pressed to meet the criticism that it showed said rights no reverence.
Laws specifying the ambit of police action are necessary to protect persons whose consent might count for naught because of their weak mental faculties, simple disposition or suggestibility. There would truly be something repugnant about consent of such persons being sufficient for the forfeiture of their rights.
At the end of the day while perhaps it hears no confuting that informed consent to an intrusion on one's rights in order to facilitate or assist the detection or prevention of crime is something to be supported and at times encouraged, a position that such should form the principal basis for rights suspension in the face of police authority is wholly unsupportable.
The Law on Police Powers in Barbados (page 69)
