Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
Suspicion is not proper grounds upon which to conduct a search?
The witness/s were their own two eyes...and the belief that the person was doing something suspicious.
|
Nope. I'm not sure if you are asking that in regards to this particular case, or in general, but this case is a good example of the law here.
The police knew that their 'suspicion' was not grounds to conduct a search, nor should it ever be. That is why they didn't search this individual. Commend the cops here for knowing their jurisdiction and abiding by it.
If we allowed cops to justify searches based on 'suspicion' (not 'reasonable' suspicion involving one of the aforementioned forms of
evidence), then it would open the door for cops to (legally) indiscriminately search anyone they wanted to, and to justify it based on 'suspicion'. This would constitute a HUGE threat to the civil liberties of privacy of 'innocent' or law-abiding citizens. Innocent until proven guilty. You have to consider that this could be taken to a level off the street. Police could legally kick your door down and rummage through your house, without any '
evidence'. They could justify it by saying that there was 'suspicion'. This is the kind of thing that happens in totalitarian regimes. This is what it means to live in a democratic society. We are afforded a right to a 'reasonable' level of privacy. This is a good thing.
The ungrounded or, more properly, unreasonable, 'suspicion' of police officers, if allowed as evidence for a search, could be abused in an unimaginable number of ways. Again, you must remember that these laws are in place to protect the innocent.
Edit: The afformentioned section 24(2) of the charter is a tricky law that (sort of) deals with your concerns. In this case, it was not abused and was used, in my opinion, exactly as it was intended. I would urge you to look it up.