B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan has torn a strip off the province’s anti-drunk-driving scheme, quashing an Immediate Roadside Prohibition handed to a drunk, naked man in a van who claimed not to have keys for the vehicle.
In a judicial review, he criticized as “specious” and “illogical” a Superintendent of Motor Vehicles adjudicator’s ruling upholding the 90-day suspension. But more than that, McEwan indicted the entire appeal process.
“The statutory regime under which the Superintendent’s delegates operate subtracts most of the means by which credibility can be tested,” said the justice, who has cast a gimlet eye in previous decisions on the Motor Vehicle Act regime touted as the toughest impaired driving law in Canada.
“These include the opportunity to see and hear witnesses, to confront them in cross-examination, to develop a full case, and to have an in-person opportunity to persuade the trier of fact.”
His harsh comments came as Vancouver lawyers raised identical issues, brandishing emails obtained through a Freedom of Information request.
The emails show the RCMP assisting the Canada Border Services Agency to apply the roadside prohibition law at the border, even though CBSA officers cannot issue the prohibitions.
Vancouver litigator Paul Doroshenko, a leading critic of the scheme, said he and other lawyers are appalled at what the RCMP described as a “check sheet” for border officers.
“It’s difficult to actually explain just how awful this is. Police writing a scenario for another organization to use as a stock piece of evidence in every case. It’s surreal.”