ROADSIDE PROHIBITIONS - SUPREME COURT OF CANADA - R. V. GOODWIN; R. V. WILSON
Sunday, October 18, 2015 at 3:52PM British Columbia's immediate roadside prohibition laws have been (for the most part) upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada. The legislation was enacted in 2010. In 2012 the legislation was amended to require officers to give drivers a second chance with a different screening device and to also allow for an administrative review of roadside prohibitions, and those amendments were looked upon favourably by the court. The Chief Justice of Canada had the following quote in one of the cases:
The ultimate question is whether the review provisions of the roadside suspension scheme offer reasonable protection against abusive exercise of the state power to intrude on the individual’s private sphere, having regard to the nature of the scheme and the privacy interests at stake. In my view, the answer to this question is yes.
Goodwin v. British Columbia, 2015 SCC 46 and Wilson v. British Columbia, 2015 SCC 47