The RCMP’s detention of a man charged with refusing to provide a breath sample was arbitrary, a Yukon judge has ruled.

Territorial Judge John Faulkner found that Walter Carlick’s rights were breached when he spent more than an hour at the Watson Lake detachment on June 14, 2015.

The judge, however, refused Carlick’s request to have the charges dismissed as a remedy for the breaches.

Carlick was stopped that day at a roadside check on the Alaska Highway between Watson Lake and Lower Post, B.C. The stop was on the Yukon side of the border.

Const. Jean-Michel Sauvé smelled a strong odour of liquor coming from Carlick’s car.

After first denying having consumed anything, Carlick admitted he had had one drink.

He refused the officer’s request to provide a breath sample.

He was charged with refusing to provide a sample, and the officer called a tow truck to remove Carlick’s car.

Sauvé then brought Carlick back to the Watson Lake detachment to finish paperwork.

Carlick was detained for an hour in a locked cell before being released.

He argued the detention was illegal under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and sought to have the charges dismissed.

Section nine of the Charter states that everyone has a right to not be arbitrarily detained nor imprisoned.

Detention is warranted when there are reasonable grounds the accused will commit further offences, the judge noted.

“It is prudent for the police to undertake a reasonable assessment of the accused’s functional sobriety recognizing that it is not in the best interests of a drunk person to release him or her,” Faulkner wrote.

However, none of these reasons applied here, which makes the detention between the time Carlick’s car was removed and the time he was released from the Watson Lake detachment arbitrary.

“(Sauvé) knew Mr. Carlick and had no concerns that he would fail to appear in court,” the judge wrote.

It’s police practice to bring back people to the RCMP detachment to fill out the paperwork, Sauvé testified.

“Cst. Sauvé also said that he has not been provided with paper forms that would allow him to release at the roadside,” Faulkner noted.

That doesn’t mean that all detentions under this policy are arbitrary, Faulkner pointed out.

The breach, Faulkner wrote, was minimal: it didn’t last long, Carlick wasn’t handcuffed nor mistreated, and the officer was polite.

He even drove Carlick home upon his release.

“Considering this was a rural detachment in the early hours of the day, it was not unreasonable, given the officer needed to turn his attention to the preparation of documents,” Faulkner wrote.

The circumstances don’t justify the remedy Carlick was seeking, he ruled.

“What occurred here falls far short of egregious state action that would call for the drastic remedy of a stay,” the judge wrote.

Calls to the Yukon RCMP seeking comment on the court decision were not returned by this afternoon’s deadline.