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In both cases, police behaviour that the Crown defended as routine and innocent — weighing a suspected impaired driver, or letting a roadside breath demand be delayed by a few minutes — was found by a judge to seriously violate constitutional rights.

The new decision of Judge Marc R. Labrosse of Ontario Superior Court upholds a lower court ruling to acquit the woman, which the Crown unsuccessfully appealed. The result is a new precedent for drunk-driving cases in the Ontario Court of Justice. Weighing someone, as far as the law is concerned, is just as intrusive as interrogating them or requesting their DNA, and it demands all the same safeguards, including the right to refuse.

“Here is the first recognized appellate authority finding that forcing an individual to get on a scale and provide their weight against their will amounts to a breach of their Charter rights,” said Solomon Friedman, a lawyer in the same firm as the woman’s lawyer, who could not comment because he was recently made a judge. He compared the issue to the right to keep silent and not incriminate yourself to police.

“Ordinarily, I can tell you as a lawyer, one of the pieces of advice that you give an individual is, ‘Don’t get on that scale. You will just be giving evidence that will be used against you. And you don’t have to,’ ” Friedman said. “In this case, the officer wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

The Charter freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, under Section 8, protects your “core biographical data,” Friedman said. “So that’s any private information about you, whether it’s something you have in your house, or in your car or on your person or in your mind. You can’t be compelled to provide it without judicial authorization.”