The Immediate Roadside Prohibition scheme has had various narrative threads, each interesting in their own respect. We have seen ongoing issues that arise from the Government’s decision to use alcohol screeners to collect evidence to base punishment. The screeners, ASDs, were never intended for this purpose and so we’ve seen major problems that will play out for years to come. We’ve seen court challenges seeking to find the law unconstitutional. The first scheme was held to be unconstitutional. The second scheme was held to pass constitutional muster. But it’s still going to the Supreme Court of Canada, so you’ll need to keep an eye on that. We’ve seen challenges to the punishment. Our challenge to the automatic imposition of the Remedial Programs caused a major change of policy and a shakeup at RoadSafetyBC. We’ve seen court decisions hammering the Government and others giving them a free hand in ways that may come back to hurt them.
[pullquote]If it strikes you as odd that the Office of the Superintendent would feel the need to say this so often, then you may have hit the nail on the head.[/pullquote]
One of our biggest concerns has been the connection between the police and RoadSafety BC, and the information we get that the management of the scheme is less concerned with fairness than it is with political concerns. This is the danger of putting adjudication between individuals and the Government in a tribunal run by the Government. Courts have power to protect their independence. It’s not the same with a tribunal run by an office that has an agenda.
For the record, since our current Justice Minister took the portfolio, we’ve seen changes that cause us to be optimistic. Things have been looking up in some respects. Rather than ignoring binding court decisions, the RoadSafetyBC tribunal is taking a more neutral stance. Still, this change of attitude, although welcome, reveals a fundamental flaw of the system: fairness at the tribunal is largely dependent on the management of the tribunal.
That’s not the way it works in court.
What direction will the RoadSafetyBC tribunal take in the future? It seems to depend on who is in charge. Quasi-judicial decision making should not vary on the whim of the person or people in charge. It’s not the way things should work in a society ruled by laws.
Decisions at RoadSafetyBC
It’s not all sunshine and hand-holding. In many RoadSafetyBC publications they make the point to claim that they are not adversarial. If it strikes you as odd that the Office of the Superintendent would feel the need to say this so often, then you may have hit the nail on the head. The fact that they felt the need to say this is one thing. The fact that they felt they needed to convince people through repetition is yet another. And the fact that it ran counter to the way most people experience their contact with the tribunal is yet another.
This is one of the Orwellian aspects of the setup that makes many people angry. The Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984 publishes nothing but lies. Why did RoadSafetyBC get out ahead of the curve to deny something before the accusation was made?
We see improvement and we’re happy to see it. We’ve been told that our critique of the OSMV / RoadSafetyBC here on our blog has been a significant factor in changes that they’ve made in their offices.
From our perspective, without defence lawyers being able to get in there and dig further, like we can in a court process, the system will always be stacked against the applicant. As it stands, we don’t think it can be fair, but we’re very happy that it’s fairer. But some things are really unfair such as…
Big IRP Problem Group 2: Missing the 7-day window to file for an IRP review
At the moment we think they’re motivated by something similar to Wilson, but there’s no doubt that it’s Government damage control.
On our blog post on December 19, 2014, we explained the policy decision made by the Government to disallow people to apply for an extension of the 7-day time period to apply for review of their IRP.
The reason they’re doing this is because, as revelations come out about the IRP scheme, including court decisions such as may be the case with the Wilson appeal, they want to ensure that innocent people who got IRPs can’t come back and challenge their IRP when they learn they were innocent after all.
For example, if we’re successful in Wilson at the Supreme Court of Canada, it will mean many thousands of people were wrongly issued IRPs and should have had them revoked upon review.
At the moment we think they’re motivated by something similar to Wilson, but there’s no doubt that it’s Government damage control.
We warned them. Don’t let it be said that they were not warned.
People in Group 2, i.e. those who did not dispute their IRP within 7 days
We expect to meet the deadline for the people who contacted us and instructed us to make submissions to extend the 7-day window. As we explained before, we fully expect to litigate a test case if the application is denied. It’s an important issue and we are comfortable that the law is on our side.
As for anyone who misses the deadline, which has very much the feel of law made by decree or whim, we also expect to take a test case to BC Supreme Court, but this will by necessity come in a case that we take on after midnight on Sunday.
As for the Group 2 deadline, we are operating on the assumption that it is midnight Sunday. It makes no sense to make a cut off at midnight on Sunday, particularly when it comes to the functioning of a Government office. As far as we’re concerned, this was trickery from the start, and this is simply evidence of that.
We understand that the weekend sale at the Gap.ca might end at midnight on Sunday, but since when did the Government establish a limitation period that ended on a Sunday? Moreover, individuals doing this on their own (maybe nobody because the Government skillfully announced this when most people wouldn’t notice) can’t head down to ICBC driver services on a Sunday to file their application because the offices are closed.
Is the Government there for you or are they adversarial? If they’re trying to distance themselves from the allegation, they’re not helping their cause with this decree made in such a fashion.
And of course, they must know that. Which means, at least to us, that they figure the damage of such a course of action to their reputation is outweighed by the potential risk they see arising from court cases and other revelations.
The big IRP problem may be a minor narrative thread with big implications.