| R. v. Dyment | |||||||||
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| Hearing: April 8, 1987 Judgment: December 8, 1988 |
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Chief Justice: Antonio Lamer |
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Majority by: Lamer J. (paras. 41-43) |
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R. v. Dyment, [1988] 2 S.C.R. 417 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the constitutional right to privacy under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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In April 1982, Brandon Dyment was in an auto accident on a highway. A doctor soon came to the scene, and he was taken to the hospital by a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer. At the hospital a blood sample was taken from him for medical purposes while unconscious. When Dyment woke up, and while still suffering from a concussion from the accident, he told the doctor that he had been drinking and had taken antihistamine tablets. The doctor talked with RCMP officer and handed over the blood sample. Police analysis of the blood found that the alcohol level was above the legal limit and so Dyment was charged with being in care or control of a motor vehicle having consumed alcohol in such quantity that the proportion in his blood exceeded 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 milliliters of blood contrary to section 236 of the Criminal Code.
At trial, Dyment was convicted.
The issue before the Supreme Court was whether:
The Supreme Court upheld the lower court decision that the RCMP's seizing of blood taken for medical purposes was a violation of section 8 of the Charter and should be excluded under section 24(2).
La Forest, writing concurring reasons, examined the scope of protection provided by section 8. He found that underlying section 8 is a right to privacy, which he described as a constitutionally protected value, stating that: