Lawyers say innocent will face harsh penalties under Alberta drunk driving law

Legal groups say Alberta’s proposed plan to crack down on suspected impaired drivers will lead to innocent people being punished.

The Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association said it is concerned about part of Bill 26 that would allow police to suspend the licence of a driver suspected of being over the legal blood-alcohol limit of .08 until the criminal charge is resolved by the courts.

President D’Arcy DePoe said with the court system badly backed up, it could take up to a year for a case to go to trial. That would lead to innocent people pleading guilty just to resolve the case more quickly.

“It means that this roadside suspension is essentially indefinite, and that provision in the legislation is designed to do nothing but force people to plead guilty,” DePoe said Tuesday. “It will ensnare innocent people. There is no question about it.”

Suspected impaired motorists would also face the cost of having their vehicle towed and impounded, essentially a fine, even though they haven’t been found guilty in court.

Part of Alberta’s law is partly modeled on legislation brought in by British Columbia last year that allows police to slap drivers with licence suspensions and impound their vehicles if they are caught with a blood-alcohol reading between .05 and .08, just below the legal limit.

The B.C. government says since its law was enacted 10 months ago, the number of impaired driving-related fatalities dropped by almost half.

Alberta hopes its legislation, which the province says is the toughest in Canada, will yield similar results.

The Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties Association says reducing drunk driving is a laudable goal for any government and deserves full public support, but not at the price of ignoring the basic legal tenet that people are innocent until proven guilty.

Hal Joffe, a lawyer with the Calgary-based organization, said if provinces want to go after people caught with a blood-alcohol levels below .08, they should petition the federal government to amend the Criminal Code.

“Do we want a police officer being, in a sense, judge, jury and executioner?,” Joffe said.

“Our entire system until now has been based on a different standard that the police gather the evidence and present it to an impartial court who then render a judgment.”

Alberta’s legislation includes an appeal process that would be run by Alberta’s Transportation Safety Board, an independent quasi-judicial tribunal.

David Dear, a spokesman for Alberta Justice, said motorists stopped by police also have the right to ask for a second breathalyzer test if they doubt the readings of the initial sample.

Dear said the government is determined to proceed with the legislation.

“This approach works,” he said. “The reality is in Alberta we have a problem, and the problem is deaths and injuries on the road from collisions involving alcohol.

“If we are serious about making communities and the roads safer in Alberta, then our priority has to be preventing those death and injuries.”

In B.C., there has been only one case in almost 3,000 where a motorist has successfully challenged the roadside sanctions, a point noted by Steve Martin, the province’s superintendent of motor vehicles.

“We believe we have a fair, impartial and comprehensive appeals structure that protects the rights of citizens. This structure has been shaped in part by prior direction and feedback from B.C. Supreme Court reviews,” Martin says in a statement on a B.C. government website.

“We must not lose sight of the tremendous benefits and achievements that the new stronger administrative sanctions have brought about. There are more people alive today as a result of the province’s new approach to drinking and driving.”

DePoe said part of Alberta’s bill that penalizes drivers suspected of being over .08 goes too far, and is certain it will face a charter challenge.

He says the association plans to lobby the Alberta government to amend the bill before it becomes law.

“I don’t think it would survive a constitutional challenge,” he said. “This is really criminal law in sheep’s clothing.”

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