HALIFAX—Nova Scotia’s former top judge will review the legality of police street checks following a recommendation from the Toronto criminologist who reviewed the controversial practice and a request from Halifax’s police board.

In a letter to the board of police commissioners, posted on the agenda for its meeting on Monday, the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission confirmed that Michael MacDonald, former Chief Justice of the Nova Scotia Appeal Court, agreed to help with the review.

“We will be working with stakeholders in the coming weeks to outline the terms of reference for the legal opinion and will certainly share a copy of the opinion with the board as soon as the work is completed,” commission director and CEO Christine Hanson wrote in June 4 letter.

Toronto criminologist Scot Wortley recommended the human rights commission seek an independent legal opinion on street checks, also known as carding, as part of his report that found Black people in Halifax are six times more likely than white people to be subjected to the controversial practice.

Street checks refer to the police practice of either stopping someone and asking for their identification or observing someone they already know from afar, and entering that information into a database.

Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey announced a moratorium on street checks in April while the province creates new regulations surrounding their use.

Following the release of Wortley’s report, commissioned by the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, Councillor Steve Craig, chair of the board of police commissioners, wrote a letter on behalf of the board to the NSHRC in May asking for a legal opinion on street checks.

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Robert Wright, chair of the African Nova Scotian Decade for People of African Descent Coalition, has consistently argued that street checks are illegal and should be banned, not regulated.

“We can’t begin to talk about the regulation of something that may be, and in our position is indeed, illegal. We do not regulate illegal activity,” Wright said during the release of Wortley’s report.

Wayne MacKay, professor emeritus at Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law, told Star Halifax in April he hasn’t studied the subject exhaustively, but he has looked into it and concluded street checks are often illegal.

“If they’re discriminatory, it’s illegal,” he said at the time.

“If they’re not discriminatory, their legality is still a little suspect, I think, because the general position should be that unless you’re under suspicion or there’s reasonable grounds to think you’ve done something, then you should not be required to engage with police.”

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MacKay noted that Wortley’s report deemed the Halifax street checks discriminatory because they disproportionately target Black people.

The letter from Hanson appears in the correspondence section of the police board’s agenda for Monday, which means there’s no motion or debate planned. There are other items related to street checks on the agenda, however, including a presentation from the Coalition to Ban Street Checks and a new policy from police on the retention of street check data.

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