We’ve never been certain that the IRP law would be struck down by our courts, but we’ve been fairly certain that by chipping away at the immediate roadside prohibition law we could cause the scheme to become irrelevant. So for us this has been our long-term strategy. And it’s working.
When the IRP law came into force many lawyers wanted to get the judicial challenge on right away, regardless of the fact pattern in the case that was advanced. It’s true that it shouldn’t matter — if the law is unconstitutional, it is unconstitutional regardless of the facts of any one particular case. We had a few early decisions of the OSMV tribunal that we couldn’t reconcile with logic or legal reasoning, so it seemed to us that perhaps one of these cases should be the lead case. However, the worry was that the Government could simply concede the case on the merits and avoid having to argue the constitutional issues in court.
The case went ahead and we’re now waiting to hear from the Court of Appeal. The Government is busy all of the time, arguing via press releases that their DUI law has saved lives. It’s the only argument that they have really. They can’t say that their system uses more reliable evidence because ASD samples taken in this manner are particularly unreliable. They can’t say that it enhances our respect for the justice system because the police violate the Charter Rights of drivers now all of the time but the OSMV tribunal ignores Charter violations as a matter of policy.
All they can do is speculate that their law saved lives of people who didn’t die in accidents. And they can’t point to any mechanism in the IRP law to connect the law to that claim.
If you have the time to drop by, we’ll show you why their claims are nonsense. But in any event, they’re making their pitch in press releases to the media who obediently republish the Government’s propaganda. And we continue to wait on the Court of Appeal.
If I don’t cut my finger this week, will it be because the Government outlawed knives? Or will it be because I didn’t cut my finger?
In any event, not wanting to wait for the Court of Appeal we decided to begin chipping away at the immediate roadside prohibition law. We started by demonstrating that Approved Screening Devices were malfunctioning at an alarming rate and that people were receiving IRPs as a result. Then we showed that in many case the police weren’t even calibrating the ASDs correctly. Then we showed that ASDs for some police forces were giving artificially high readings and nobody was doing anything about it.
The result of our efforts was that in the second version of the law the police must now show that the device has been calibrated. The police procedure was turned on its head — this is all owing to us — and device testing is greatly improved, although the testing is still grossly inadequate in our view.
One result is that there are more standardized records. Another result is that a review of these records more effectively demonstrates what we’ve argued all along: Approved Screening Devices should never be used as the basis of punishment.
Interlock revoked for thousands of British Columbians
When we write the obituary for the IRP law we’ll devote a chapter on how we managed to get the interlock revoked for thousands of British Columbians. If you want to know the story, go back and read the blog for the last few months. We had our pick axe out. Busy chipping.
More and more arguments
We’ve collected so much material at this point that it’s staggering. We’ve spent so much time thinking about the holes in the IRP law. We’ve worked out more and more arguments to undermine the law. We’re succeeding in more IRP appeals than ever. And we’ve got so much more by way of materials and arguments that we’re holding back for the right time to use. We feel that we’re just getting started.
We think that the demise of the IRP laws is on the horizon because courageous people and lawyers are busy revealing holes in the law and the appeal procedure. There’s still a lot of work to do, but in the end we think that the IRP law, as it was conceived, cannot continue.
People who are following us and who have read our blog for months or years know that we develop short and long term strategies to deal with IRPs and the IRP law. Our goal is to gut the IRP scheme because it is not worthy of our democracy and justice system. We’re going to keep chipping away at it.
We’re IRP lawyers. Not only do we defend IRPs, we’re working to completely eliminate the IRP law. We’ve gained a lot of ground by chipping away at the immediate roadside prohibition law.