COURT LIMITS SEARCHES

Police Must Have Reasonable Grounds To Search People

OTTAWA -- Police can no longer go on "fishing expeditions" by searching
people that they stopped on the street without reasonable grounds to
suspect that they pose a safety threat, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled
Friday.

The decision, which clears a young Winnipeg labourer of drug trafficking
charges, is the high court's first foray into the constitutional validity
of the routine police practice of briefly detaining Canadians for
investigative purposes without arresting them.

The legal challenge once again thrust the court into balancing the ability
of the police to do their job and the civil rights of Canadians to be
reasonably free of state interference.

"Individual liberty interests are fundamental to the Canadian
constitutional order," Justice Frank Iacobucci, who has just retired, wrote
for the 5-2 majority.

"Consequently, any intrusion upon them must not be taken lightly."

The decision acquitted Philip Henry Mann, a young Winnipeg aboriginal who
was in the wrong place at the wrong time late one night just before
Christmas 2000. Police, en route to a break-and-enter scene in a rough
neighbourhood, stopped him because he matched the suspect's description "to
the tee."

Mann, then 21, was searched and police found an ounce of marijuana in the
front pouch of his sweatshirt.

"Individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their pockets,"
wrote Iacobucci, overturning the Manitoba Court of Appeal.

"I believe their search fell outside the gambit of what is permissible."

The charter of rights protects Canadians against unreasonable search and
seizure, the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned and the
right to be informed of the reasons for being held by police.

Mann's lawyer, Amanda Sansregret, said she hopes the ruling will curtail
the "daily practice" of police searching people without reasonable grounds
to believe they were involved in a crime.

"It's going to put an end to fishing expeditions," she predicted. "I think
that routinely happens and we've become a bit cavalier about the fact that
slowly, but surely, your rights to be secure from unreasonable search and
seizure have been eroded."

The Supreme Court invited Parliament to legislate appropriate practice and
procedure techniques for on-the-spot police searches to ensure that they
respect both individual liberties and officer safety.

A spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police said he
doesn't expect the ruling will be a major setback for officers,
particularly because the Supreme Court recognized for the first time that
temporary detentions are constitutional.

"It has not expanded our ability to do our job, but I don't think it's
taken away that much," said Greg Preston, an Edmonton police officer and
lawyer.

"It doesn't impede on our ability to detain people, which is very important
for us to do our job properly. But the balance favours individual freedom
slightly more than officer safety in these scenarios. What the police were
hoping for was a bit more."

The police power to briefly detain people without arresting them has been
upheld in lower courts throughout Canada, but Friday's ruling marked the
first time the practice has been recognized by the Supreme Court.

The decision was the first major declaration on investigative police
searches since 1985, when the Supreme Court ruled that police have the
right to stop motorists at random and use breath tests to check for drunkenness.