{"id":421056,"date":"2026-01-20T08:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T08:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/421056\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T08:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T08:48:15","slug":"hearings-begin-at-supreme-court-on-constitutionality-of-random-police-traffic-stops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/421056\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearings begin at Supreme Court on constitutionality of random police traffic stops"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court of Canada started hearing a case on Monday about whether it\u2019s constitutional for police to make random traffic stops, after Quebec\u2019s highest court ruled that the practice leads to racial profiling.<\/p>\n

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The case involves Joseph-Christopher Luamba, a young Montrealer of Haitian descent who said he was repeatedly stopped by police for no apparent reason, beginning shortly after he got his licence in 2019. None of the stops resulted in a ticket.<\/p>\n

Luamba and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association went to court to challenge the power of police to stop drivers without a reasonable suspicion that an offence had been committed.<\/p>\n

Quebec\u00a0Superior Court Justice Michel Yergeau sided with Luamba in October 2022, saying that racial profiling exists and that it\u2019s a reality that weighs heavily on Black people. Quebec\u2019s Court of Appeal upheld the ruling in 2024.<\/p>\n

A lawyer for\u00a0Quebec\u00a0government told the Supreme Court on Monday that the lower-court decisions deprive police of an important tool to enforce road safety rules. \u201cThere is a deterrent factor in routine verification,\u201d Michel D\u00e9om said. \u201cIf a person knows they can be intercepted at any time to verify their driver\u2019s licence, that has an effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Structured enforcement operations such as drunk driving checkpoints, which are allowed under the law, aren\u2019t enough because they\u2019re easy to avoid in urban areas and hard to use effectively in rural ones.<\/p>\n

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D\u00e9om said the law allowing random stops doesn\u2019t need to be overturned just because some officers carry out \u201cillegal interceptions\u201d based on prejudice.<\/p>\n

\u201cStopping a driver for verification purposes other than to ensure road safety is contrary to the rule of law and constitutes an illegal interpretation,\u201d he said. He noted that\u00a0Quebec\u00a0has acknowledged the issue of racial profiling among officers and put measures in place to counter it.<\/p>\n

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But Luamba\u2019s lawyer and the CCLA told Canada\u2019s highest court that police stops aren\u2019t random at all and disproportionately affect Black drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evidence is clear, racial profiling exists,\u201d Luamba\u2019s lawyer Mike Sim\u00e9on said Monday. \u201cThe power of random interception is applied in a non-random way. Firstly, so it\u2019s not random, it\u2019s applied arbitrarily to a segment of the population.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the stops have led to what he called a \u201csystemic violation of the fundamental rights of thousands of Canadians\u201d and of Black men in particular.<\/p>\n

\u201cA young Black man that hasn\u2019t been stopped in a purely random way in their life \u2014 that\u2019s an oddity, something almost unheard of,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Yergeau\u2019s 2022 ruling invalidated the rules established by a 1990 Supreme Court decision \u2014 R. v. Ladouceur \u2014 which found that police were justified when they issued a summons to an Ontario driver who had been stopped randomly and who had been driving with a suspended licence. The high court ruled that random stops were the only way to determine whether drivers are properly licensed, whether a vehicle\u2019s seatbelts work and whether a driver is impaired.<\/p>\n

But Yergeau wrote it was time for the justice system to declare this power, which he said violates certain constitutional rights, obsolete and inoperable, as well as the article of Quebec\u2019s provincial Highway Safety Code that allows it.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association argued the Ladouceur decision had removed limits on police power that need to be put back in place to prevent profiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evidence is clear that it\u2019s the very nature of the power, unconstrained, low visibility, discretionary, unreviewable, standardless, that gives rise to the discriminatory effects under Section 15,\u201d said lawyer Lex Gill, referring to a Section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees equality rights.<\/p>\n

Gill noted that police can still conduct stops under designated road safety programs, put checkpoints in place, carry out \u201clawful, reasonable, suspicion-based\u201d investigations and pull people over when an infraction is committed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this court upholds the Court of Appeal\u2019s decision, the sky has not fallen in\u00a0Quebec, it will not fall,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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The Supreme Court hearings continue on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 19, 2026.<\/p>\n

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