SUPREME COURT RULING ENDS POLICE 'FISHING'

Routine Police Practice: Winnipeg Labourer Cleared Of Drug Trafficking
Charges

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

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 people for investigative purposes without arresting them.

"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, an aboriginal man who was in
the wrong place at the wrong time late one night just before Christmas
in 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."

Mr. 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 Justice Iacobucci in the ruling overturning the
Manitoba Court of Appeal.

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

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects Canadians against
unreasonable search and seizure and arbitrary detention or
imprisonment.

It also guarantees the right to be informed of the reasons for being
held by police.

Mr. Mann's lawyer, Amanda Sansregret, said she hopes the ruling will
curtail the "daily practice" of police searching people without any
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," Ms. Sansregret said.

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

A spokesman for the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police said he
does not expect the ruling will be a major setback for officers,
particularly because the Supreme Court recognized for the first time
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."

He added, "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 ruling will be meaningless unless governments set up independent
oversight agencies to audit police practices, said Alan Borovoy, who
is the president of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

"Periodically, there is a disturbing dichotomy between what courts
promulgate and what police practise," Mr. Borovoy said.

"The concern is there is not in place a system for adequately
accounting for how the police behave and this judgment highlights the
need for it."

The power of police to briefly detain people without arresting them
has been upheld in lower courts throughout Canada.

However, yesterday's ruling marked the first time the practice has
been recognized by the Supreme Court.

Under Canadian law, to be detained means to be stopped or kept
waiting, encompassing any situation in which a person does not feel he
or she is free to go.

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