Lawmakers from the City Council’s progressive caucus on Thursday introduced legislation they said would improve frayed relations between the police and minority communities by requiring officers to identify themselves during stops and then inform the people they confront of their right not to be searched if there’s no probable cause.

The bill, dubbed The Right to Know Act, requires officers to hand over business cards with their name, rank and command following stops that don’t lead to arrests or summonses. It also requires them to articulate a person’s right not to consent to a voluntary search and create a record in writing or by audio recording of a person’s consent to a search and knowledge he or she can withdraw consent at any point.

“We cannot improve police-community relations without first improving the on-the-ground interactions between police and civilians,” said Councilman Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat and bill co-sponsor who spoke at a press conference outside City Hall surrounded by other legislators, advocates and union members.

Suspects cannot refuse searches if police observe suspicious behavior or crimes or if they have warrants.

But Torres said the proposed law, supported by the New York Civil Liberties Union and other groups, was designed to stop arrests and summonses that result from voluntary searches people don’t know they can refuse and that end up leading to citations for marijuana possession or other crimes that disproportionately affect minority neighborhoods.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, has made improving police and community relations a top priority and earlier this week announced that people caught carrying small amounts of marijuana will be issued non-criminal summonses, rather than be arrested on misdemeanor charges.

But he has also faced pushback from the police unions and said on Wednesday he has concerns about the proposed transparency bill, telling reporters he worried about “undermining the ability of law enforcement to do its job.”

A spokesman for the New York Police Department referred questions to the mayor’s office, which pointed to his comments Wednesday.

But the president of the powerful Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, Patrick Lynch, called the law unnecessary.

“The political posturing by this Council is dangerous and destructive and not in the best interest of public safety,” he said in a statement.

(AP)