Saskatchewan court says no random police checks in private parking lots
By The Canadian Press - Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - 0 Comments
HUMBOLDT, Sask. – Saskatchewan’s highest court has put the brakes on police randomly stopping…
HUMBOLDT, Sask. – Saskatchewan’s highest court has put the brakes on police randomly stopping people in private parking lots.
The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has ruled that the provincial Traffic Safety Act does not authorize police to make such checks.
The case involved a woman who was stopped in a parking lot at a hotel in Humboldt in 2009. Two officers on a routine patrol stopped an SUV to check for a driver’s licence and vehicle registration. One of the officers took the woman to the police car and asked if she’d been drinking. When she said yes, the officer demanded a breath sample.
The court decision says the woman went through the motions, but couldn’t produce a suitable sample.
She was charged with failing to provide a breath sample and was acquitted. That decision went to a higher court, where she was convicted, and it finally fell to the Court of Appeal to acquit her.
-
Where 88 equals 499
By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 12:40 PM - 1 Comment
A Russian television report has revealed, a recent Duma vote, in which new drunk-driving legislation passed 449 to zero
Getty Images
Prudent puppies come when called. The same cannot be said of the deputies in the Russian parliament, who, despite being chided as Vladimir Putin’s lapdogs, appear to have a truancy problem. As a Russian television report has revealed, a recent Duma vote, in which new drunk-driving legislation passed 449 to zero, was not as well-attended as the result suggests. According to the report, a mere 88 deputies showed up to the May 19 session. That, however, didn’t stop those in attendance from carrying on: during the 20 seconds allotted to vote, members rushed around pushing the buttons reserved for their absent colleagues. As Ren TV observed, “One physically fit deputy has time to press nine buttons.”
Absenteeism among deputies, many of whom are Russian celebrities, is nothing new. In April, President Dmitry Medvedev issued a public chastisement: “For those who don’t go,” he said, “let’s change the legislation and let them go somewhere else.” After the TV report surfaced, top-ranking United Russia party official Sergei Neverov echoed the threat. “The Duma needs to get rid of the truant deputies,” he said. A video clip of the vote, meanwhile, spread like wildfire: it attracted 180,000 views on YouTube alone. This is one dog-and-pony show, it seems, that the Russian public doesn’t want to miss.
