IRPs are unconstitutional!
On November 30, 2011, Judge Sigurdson finally gave his ruling in Sivia and found that the new IRPs are indeed unconstitutional. In a nutshell, this means that the police are no longer allowed to rely on the IRP regime in the case of a "fail" reading and must instead take the driver down to the RCMP detachment for proper readings. Oddly, however, a "warn" reading was found to be just fine.
One thing the judgment did not get into, however, is what this means for persons already affected by the IRP regime. On one hand, if the law is unconstitutional for one, it's unconstitutional for all. On the other hand, our laws are presumed to be lawful until they're overturned. We will therefore be fighting to ensure that our clients have their licences returned to them without the remedial penalties such as the Interlock program and Responsible Drivers Program. Contact our office to discuss this further.
Read the whole judgment here