Since September, 2010 the BC Government has been issuing drivers in the province Immediate Roadside Prohibitions if they fail an Approved Screening Device test or if they refuse to comply with an Approved Screening Device demand. The Approved Screening Device is the roadside breath tester used in these cases.
If you have received a 90-day IRP it is important that you consult a lawyer as soon as possible. You only have 7 days to file an application for review of the prohibition. While extensions of the 7 days are available, they are only granted in extreme circumstances. Most people do not meet this standard. Many lawyers, including our office, offer a free consultation to discuss how to proceed with your IRP review.
In our offices, the lawyers will review the evidence provided to ICBC by the police in your case. It is crucial that you have a lawyer review your evidence. They are knowledgeable about defences to IRPs that you may not be aware of. In addition, lawyers conduct many of these hearings a week. They are aware of the arguments that may succeed and the arguments that will lose. For example, the adjudicator cannot consider hardship in the review.
Once a lawyer has reviewed the evidence in your case, he or she will be able to give you an opinion about whether you have a chance of success on review. Our policy is not to advise people to hire us to conduct a review if we know they will lose. However, if we think there is an issue worthy of consideration, we will advise you to file for an oral hearing. You must file within 7 days of the date on the IRP. The lawyers in our office then conduct the hearing with an adjudicator from ICBC. A decision is usually made within 21 days.
If you lose, it is not over. There is still the opportunity to appeal to the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Our office has worked on many of these appeals. Currently, we are awaiting a decision about the Constitutionality of the IRP regime. If you have conducted the hearing yourself, you can still hire us to appeal your decision for you. But in order to appeal, you must have had a hearing and you must have lost.
We are able to seek a stay of the driving prohibition and the other consequences pending the outcome of the appeal. This means that you may be able to get your license back in the meantime, until a decision is made. We do not know when that will be.
If you are interested in hiring us to conduct a review of your IRP please contact our offices at 604-685-8889. The phones are answered 24/7.