As the end of the holiday season approaches, police on the North Shore say theyll still be out enforcing laws against drunk drivers.
Following recent court decisions, however, drivers who blow a fail on roadside screening devices will no longer get immediate 90-day driving suspensions. But they could still face driving bans and even criminal charges.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Jon Sigurdson ruled at the beginning of December that B.C.'s harshest administrative penalties for drunk drivers violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because they allow police to impose criminal-style penalties without giving drivers a chance to appeal.
Although drivers could apply to the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles to review the decision, those cases have essentially been unwinnable. That robs drivers of a fair hearing, the court ruled.
But in a new court decision Dec. 23, Sigurdson agreed to a request to put off declaring the law invalid for six months, in order to give the government time to come up with an appeal process. In making the decision, Sigurdson said he had concluded that immediately striking the drunk driving laws down could pose a danger to the public.
He gave the government until June 30 to fix the problems in the current drunk driving legislation.
In the interim, police in both North and West Vancouver said they will be processing drivers who fail the roadside screening device under the old regulations including an immediate 24-hour suspension, a further suspension that does not take effect until after 21 days and possible criminal charges.
In making the decision, the judge stressed the less onerous administrative penalties for those who blow between .05 and .08 and 90-day suspensions for those who refuse to blow into a screening device are still in force.
Since the original ruling struck down part of the legislation, many people handed a 90-day suspension including one West Vancouver realtor have appealed their penalties and asked that their licences be restored.
The judge has not yet ruled on what should happen to them.
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