WELCOME RULING

It is not a good idea that our children grow up believing that the
police have an inalienable right to arbitrarily search their person or
their property at any time and in any place to see if they might have
committed a crime of some sort. Yet that is the lesson that we have
been teaching our children as school administrators invite the police
to bring sniffer dogs to school to randomly search students' lockers
and backpacks for illegal drugs or anything else of criminal interest
they might find.

Canadians, then, should welcome last week's Supreme Court ruling that
places restrictions on the police use of sniffer dogs to conduct
random searches in schools or in public places such as bus depots.
Such searches, unless they can be justified by reasonable suspicion
that a crime is being committed, violate Sec. 8 of the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms, which protects citizens against unreasonable
search and seizure, said the judges in dealing with two appeals, both
decided by 6-3 rulings.

One of the two cases before the court involved a high school student
charged with possession of drugs when a police dog sniffed them in his
backpack after police had been invited into the school by the
principal. The other involved a man arrested at a bus terminal when a
police dog smelled drugs on him. In neither case, the judges ruled,
did the police have grounds to conduct such searches -- and they
emphatically answered the question that the use of dogs is a search of
person and property -- and so any evidence found in the search is
inadmissible.

Since the judgment came down on Friday, police have been complaining
that it will hamper their attempts to enforce the drug laws and give
licence to school children to freely engage in drug trafficking and
drug use. Some school officials and members of the general public
agree that the judges have once again arbitrarily handcuffed law
enforcement without reasonable grounds.

There is no question that the ruling will make policing more
difficult, but in this case it is a price worth paying. Police work
would be a lead-pipe cinch if only we would abandon all our rights and
freedoms. Every right, each individual freedom, is a precious and
hard-won thing. The right to be free from fear of arbitrary search and
seizure is one of the most fundamental of those liberties. The Supreme
Court has recognized this in its ruling. It is the lesson our children
should be learning in school, instead of watching the violation of
their rights become institutionalized.