BORDER SEARCH RULING DISPUTED

It's business as usual for border guards at Windsor-Detroit crossings
despite a B.C. judge's decision indicating a search warrant is needed
for customs officers to search vehicles.

"My impression is that she (the judge) has no knowledge of the Customs
Act," said Marie-Claire Coupal, a Windsor-based vice-president of the
Customs Excise Union Douanes Accise. "We have won this in court before."

B.C. provincial court Judge Ellen Gordon last week acquitted a man,
Ajitpal Singh Sekhon, of importing 50 kilograms of cocaine into Canada.

Gordon ruled that border officers violated three sections of the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms when they dismantled the truck
Sekhon was driving without a search warrant.

As a result, the seized drugs were excluded from evidence during the
trial.

Coupal said that if every search required a warrant issued by a judge,
the border inspection system would grind to a halt.

"If we do call a judge every time we inspect a vehicle they'd have to
have a lot of judges on standby," said Coupal.

"We work 24-7. It's just ludicrous. There's no rhyme or reason for
it."

Pending an appeal of Gordon's ruling, border guards are going about
their business as usual.

SUPREME COURT DECISION

"On the one hand they are giving us firearms to protect our country,
but now they are saying we can't search," said Coupal.

Local federal prosecutor Richard Pollock, who returned from holidays
in Italy on Wednesday and stressed his only knowledge of the case came
from The Star, said the Customs Act has a provision allowing for
searches that supercedes the charter.

"It (Gordon's decision) appears to be inconsistent with the line of
Supreme Court of Canada decisions with regard to the search powers of
officers," said Pollock.

"The law as I know it is that a person who presents themselves at the
Canadian border, their reasonable expectation of privacy is not the
same as if they were driving a car or on the street or in their own
home. Anyone entering the country has a reduced expectation of privacy."

Section 98 of the Customs Act states that a customs officer may search
any person entering or leaving the country and "if the officer
suspects on reasonable grounds that the person has secreted on or
about his person anything in respect of which this Act has been or
might be contravened, anything that would afford evidence with respect
to a contravention of this Act or any goods the importation or
exportation of which is prohibited, controlled or regulated under this
or any other Act of Parliament."