Quebec is hoping to overturn a court-ordered ban on random traffic stops by police by appealing the landmark decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, Radio-Canada has learned.
The Quebec government’s decision comes after it lost twice in lower courts.
In 2022, Superior Court Justice Michel Yergeau issued a ruling which stated that the provision in the province’s Highway Safety Code, article 636, which allows police officers to stop drivers without cause should be invalidated.
Yergeau said the random stops lead to racial profiling.
“Racial profiling does exist. It is not a laboratory-constructed abstraction. It is not a view of the mind. It is a reality that weighs heavily on Black communities. It manifests itself in particular among Black drivers of motor vehicles,” Yergeau wrote in his ruling.
“Charter rights can no longer be left in thrall to an unlikely moment of epiphany by the police. Ethics and justice must go hand in hand to turn this page.”
In October of this year, the Quebec Court of Appeal upheld that ruling in a unanimous decision that said the random traffic stops violates Charter rights, including freedom from arbitrary detention and equality rights.
Quebec has argued that the ban would hamper the work of police officers.
Joseph-Christopher Luamba, a Black Montrealer, filed the initial legal challenge.
He said he had been stopped by Quebec police nearly a dozen times without reason, and none of the stops resulted in a ticket.
Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barette said the province’s Justice Ministry is contesting the Quebec Court of Appeal’s decision because they believe the court made errors.
“We consider it important to make it so that police have the tools to do their job and we’re going to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider the position of the Quebec Court of Appeal and to maintain this very important tool for police work,” he told reporters at the National Assembly in Quebec City.
He declined to say what those errors were, saying the details would be unveiled in the province’s application to the Supreme Court.
The province had been given six months to change the law, and Jolin-Barette said they would ask the Supreme Court to suspend the Quebec Court of Appeal’s decision while awaiting a decision from the highest court.
Public Safety Minister François Bonnardel said he was “very happy” with the decision by the Justice Ministry to contest the ruling, saying they were “coming to the defense of the police.”
“Article 636 is immensely important,” he said. “Thanks to 636 we save lives and we make the roads safer.”
Emmanuel Abraham filed his complaint to Quebec’s police ethics commissioner a decade ago. It took more than five years for it to reach a hearing at Quebec’s police ethics tribunal. That’s where he thought the case ended.
