National Police Act (Arab Union)

The National Police Act (Arabic: قانون الشرطة الوطنية qānūn ash-shurṭah al-waṭanīyah) is the main constituting instrument for civilian law enforcement in the Arab Union, passed by the Arab Congress in 2000. The act places civilian policing mostly within republican jurisdiction, mandating for the existence of a unique national police service in each of the 20 republics of the Arab Union, answerable to the respective republic's interior ministry; it also sets out the structure and responsibilities of other civilian law enforcement and security agencies under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Interior. According to the act, the territorial police forces under republican Ministry of Interior jurisdiction are responsible for local law enforcement; criminal matters affecting two or more police districts come under National Police jurisdiction, as well as republican-level policing. The Union-Republican Police is the uniformed federal law enforcement agency which answers to the Attorney-General of the Arab Union, and handles all policing and investigations affecting two or more republics or the union as a whole, as well as enforcing federal warrants issued by the Supreme Court of the Arab Union; however, the Joint Security Committee, the Arab Union's premier security agency, may take over federal investigations at its discretion.

The act establishes a republic's National Police as the primary legitimate policing body in the country at the republican level. The act requires each municipality to contract with the National Police to provide policing at the municipal level, which is overseen by a police board. The National Police surrenders cases to other agencies as required by established convention and norms set out by the act (for example, police detaining a suspected terrorist will transfer custody and refer the case to federal authorities). Police boards also set out general policy and guidelines relevant to their locality to further ensure compliance with national law, and oversee the budget of the department and its subordinate detachments within the district/governorate. Municipalities with a population in excess of 200,000 have the option, according to the National Police Act, to establish their own municipal police department, canceling their contract with the National Police for municipal policing; such municipalities must also form a police board, which answers to both the municipal government and the republic's Minister of Interior and which acts as the employer of the new police department. All municipalities exceeding 1 million in population and about 45% of qualifying municipalities have their own police departments. The National Police retains jurisdiction within such municipalities at the district, governorate and republican levels; many large cities, however, consist of a single municipality merged with a district and sometimes even a governorate, meaning that in such cities, National Police would only have jurisdiction at the republican (and possibly governorate) level.

The National Police Act has a section dedicated to corrections, stating that corrections are handled by a separate agency under the republican Ministry of Interior which operates all prisons and remand centres in the republic at a centralised level, namely the Corrections Directorate. According to the act, regular police may only detain an individual who has been lawfully arrested and charged with a crime for a maximum of 48 hours, upon which time the detainee must appear before a court in a remand hearing to determine if they should be released on a recognisance of bail or remanded into custody pending trial; remanded detainees must then be immediately transferred to the custody of the Corrections Directorate, which arranges all further detention and transportation to trials and other appointments. Similarly, the act states that the police must lawfully charge an arrestee with a crime within 12 hours of their arrest, without which the arrestee must be immediately released.

The act also has detailed sections on the public security powers of the Military Police Directorate, an agency of the federal Ministry of Defence, which in peacetime are limited in the main to guarding federal government buildings and federal property and providing security alongside the republican National Police and other civilian police agencies during large events like presidential inaugurations or visits of foreign dignitaries. For example, the act limits the powers of arrest of military police to military personnel, requiring detained civilians to be immediately released or handed over to civilian police with any relevant evidence for formal arrest and charge. If martial law is in effect (which according to the constitution is only legitimate in wartime), the National Police Act states that the military police have full policing jurisdiction within the civilian population, and requires National Police and other agencies to cooperate with and assist the military police in public security and law enforcement.