Papua New Guinea's former attorney general Kerenga Kua says police commissioner Gari Baki has become too emotionally involved in the ongoing fracas involving the country's fraud squad, and its investigation into Prime Minister Peter O'Neill.
Police officers loyal to the commissioner locked down the fraud squad's office with chains on Monday, after the country's top anti-corruption policeman Matthew Damaru was granted a court order to stop the commissioner from suspending him.
Commissioner Gari Baki suspended Chief Superintendant Damaru purportedly over an unrelated investigation in Simbu province.
He denied the suspension was due to the fraud squad's recent arrest of Attorney-General Ano Pala, Supreme Court judge Bernard Sakora, and the Prime Minister's lawyer Tiffany Twivey Nonggorr.
Almost two years ago, Mr Kua was one of the first officials to lose his job after the fraud squad served an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Peter O'Neill, and he told Pacific Beat the police chief's actions were being directed by the PM's office.
"They are overreacting, I think they are getting carried away with their emotions, I think it's time they simplify their approach and get the basics right," he said.
"[Commissioner Baki] should begin to respect his own legislation, which is the Police Act, and the fact that each and every individual police officer within that force is autonomous in his operations subject only to administrative matters, but not to substantive matters in the way a police officer approaches a crime.
"The Police Commissioner needs to respect the processes of law enforcement and the judicial system."
Mr Kua said the police commissioner's emotions were clouding his judgement.
"Listening to his voice, he's clearly distraught and emotional. He's not a rational man anymore... Listening to him over the radio, he's yelling and he's screaming.
"In a time of crisis like this, you need your head of the police force to keep his head squarely on his shoulders, be calm, be rational, be cool, be composed, and talk sense and logic, because he leads a group of men that has important consequences to the nation," he said.
Mr Kua said the Prime Minister O'Neill should take responsibility for his police commissioner's behaviour.
"All roads lead to the Prime Minister's office.... He needs to bring his police commissioner in line, and advise him that the police commissioner is under an obligation to follow an order of the court," he said.
"They forget that these issues are institutionalised. People come and go, but once it's institutionalised, these issues will be there for a long, long time, well beyond their term of office.
"Right now, the Prime Minister is acting untouchable, and now his commissioner has learnt off that behaviour and he's imitating that behaviour in trying to make himself an untouchable person."
Mr Kua says the Prime Minister and the Police Commissioner should hold themselves to the same standards expected of ordinary Papua New Guineans.
"Would a normal person, residing in one of the settlements, or holding down an ordinary public service job... Be able to do the things they are doing, and stand off accountability through a legal process, through law and order procedure?" he said.
"Would an ordinary person in their very situation do that... Exhibit the kind of behaviour that they are exhibiting now, and get away with it? You have to follow the same rules that everybody else is expected to follow."