On July 12 (yesterday) the Court ruled that despite the earlier finding that the first version of the IRP law for Fail could not stand, that decision would not provide any relief to people who received their IRP before November 30, 2011. The BC Supreme Court will permit no remedy for the violation of your Charter rights.
Bearing in mind the very long time that it took to get the November 30, 2011 ruling, it seems very unfair to us. Simply put, if the Court had issued the ruling in July 2011, thousands of people would not have been punished under this scheme.
The Court ruled that the driving prohibitions, fines, interlock and responsible driver program course all must be served. Of course, there are many categories of individuals depending on how far they were along in the punishment and whether they had some other arguments that would be worthy of appeal in court arising from the OSMV review decision.
We expect that the Government will want to get to punishing people as soon as possible. The wheels are now set in motion. We are waiting for their next move.
We also expect that the appeal will be filed fairly quickly.
We will begin reviewing our client’s files next week to determine the next step for each person. As we think things through and get an idea of where the OSMV and Attorney General’s office are headed, we will provide further updates.