Case information

Constitutional law — Charter of Rights — Routine traffic checks — Checks authorized by statute — Driver stopped for no apparent reason — Whether Court of Appeal erred in finding that stop power considered in Ladouceur does not exist at common law — Whether Court of Appeal erred in finding that stop power provided for in s. 636 of Highway Safety Code unjustifiably infringes ss. 7, 9 and 15(1) of Canadian Charter — Highway Safety Code, CQLR, c. C-24.2, s. 636.

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Mr. Luamba is of Congolese origin and has had a driver’s licence since 2019. In the course of a single year, he was stopped by the police three times while driving, identified and then released without being given a ticket. Believing that he had been a victim of racial profiling in being stopped, he brought an action in November 2020 challenging the constitutional validity of the common law rule granting police officers [translation] “the power to stop a motor vehicle and its driver without any reasonable grounds to believe or suspect that an offence has been committed” and of s. 636 of the Highway Safety Code.

The trial judge found that the power to make a traffic stop without any actual grounds and s. 636 of the Highway Safety Code (“HSC”) infringed ss. 7, 9 and 15 of the Charter and that the infringements were not justified by s. 1. The appropriate remedy was to declare them to be of no force or effect. The Court of Appeal was of the view that the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Ladouceur was not a law, but it upheld the lower court judge’s findings on the unjustified infringements of ss. 9 and 15 of the Charter in respect of s. 636 of the HSC. In light of the finding on s. 9 of the Charter, the Court of Appeal did not consider it necessary to address the issue of a possible infringement of s. 7.