The announcement to establish an independent monitoring unit within the police force comes as good news, particularly in the light of the alleged murder of a police officer by a colleague.

Indeed the decision to set up this unit should have been taken back in 1987 when a freshly elected Nationalist government was landed with a shoddy police force respected only for its efficiency in meting out torture and setting up frame-ups.

Sadly, the government of the day failed to completely weed out the bad elements within the police.

We need not exhume the past at every stage of a debate about the police. Yet, the inherited evil that pervades a small and invisible part of the corps may find its roots in this history.

We should not generalise. There are diligent police officers, but if the attitude has constantly been one of nonchalance, then one should not expect too much from the average police constable.

We agree that the Commissioner of Police should be delegated powers to impose more discipline. Having to wait for the PSC to take disciplinary action in internal police affairs is simply not acceptable. A case in point was the police sergeant mentioned in the Nardu Debono murder trial who is facing the PSC 19 years after the case actually occurred.

The police need to brush up its corporate image and refine its dealings with the public by building on the positive elements that one expects in a police force. When one acknowledges that the corporate image can only stem from the way the force acts, then its enhancement is an endeavour that cannot be treated lightly.

Time and time again, the lessons of Europe and the US with their police can serve to unravel novel solutions in tackling the police force's corporate image and its efficiency ratings.

We are not the only ones to have to live with bad and inefficient police.

One such case is exemplified in the work ethic in Manchester, UK, where the new police chief imposed two important thresholds; the first one, to weed out all the corrupt elements in the force and the second to introduce zero tolerance.

In other words, an attitude to be intolerant to the smallest of offences, including spitting on side-walks, littering and abusive parking. This is said to leave a multiplier effect on big-time crimes.

As an independent newspaper we have faith in the long-term plan for police reform outlined recently by home affairs minister, Tonio Borg.

We will support such reforms. But now is the time to move ahead and act.