“Driving While Under Suspension”

Hi,

I got pulled over about 15 or so days ago the court till this date has not received the summons what is the legal time period that the court has to follow to accept the summons from the office court says its 15 days is the legal timeframe the officer has to serve it on the court

but this information says differently..

11. (1) The clerk of the court shall not accept for filing a certificate of offence more than seven days after the day on which the offence notice or summons was served unless the time is extended by the court. R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 200, r. 11.

My other question is can i also Do a motion to quash this ticket based on some fatal errors on the ticket such as the address on the summons

Officer made a mistake filling out my summons by putting a wrong address on there...

Is the wrong address considered a Fatal Errorr on part 3 Summons?

Also i got another summons in a different location that had my name spelled incorrectly can that be used to reference to Case Law as a Fatal Error?

Any help would be appreciated thanks.

The 7 days applies to Part 1 offences (PONs aka Tickets).

A part 3 ticket is subject to the 6 month time limit as outlined in the Provincial Offences Act.

Address is not a fatal error, nor is spelling your name wrong. The name can be amended and the address doesn't even have to be.

so what your saying is that the address is not considered a fatal error?

and that my name is also not considered a fatal error?

then what is considered a fatal error on Summons? Can you please clarify

and what other pointers can you point me towards that would give reasons for quashing these tickets or atleast me winning them.?

There is some debate around what is considered a fatal errors and it does sometimes depend on the JP. Definitely missing date, missing location, missing or incorrect charge, or missing person would be fatal because without those 4 they can't read the charge in.

Possible fatal errors would be missing/incorrect time, incorrect date, incorrect set fine/no set fine, etc.

Unlikely to ever constitute a fatal error would be spelling errors, wrong address, etc.

There are no silver bullets to getting your ticket quashed and how to win depends largely on the particular circumstances of the case - that's what this whole forum is about and there's plenty of information here and on some other sites this one links to.

well here's my scenario i had the summons issued to me but i don't live in Canada no more i live in the USA i had told MTO to cancel the license which they did but it showed up in the computer as suspended for the officer..

Ive got a valid out of province license Ive been told that taking that to court with you to prove valid drivers license you end up getting the driving while under suspension charge dropped to Drive with no license or something like that a 200$ ticket is there any reference to case law for that?

No case law on that but I've seen it done numerous times. Did you have the valid out of province licence when you were stopped and charged with driving on a suspended Ontario licence or did you get the out of province licence after that?

Drive no licence is $260 + cost & surcharge for a total of $325

Well i dont live in canada i live in the us now for work and because of that i got a US drivers license not canadian

will that still allow me to get into the No Drivers License ticket wich is still cheaper then the under suspension one?

It might, depends on the prosecutor.

Is there no Case Law atall that shows that people should get a reduced fine or something?? or reduced charge im sure there has to be someone had to have appealed it or something.

No, because when someone gets a reduced fine it's in exchange for a guilty plea, which means there's no trial and the judge doesn't weigh in on it so these situations never end up being recorded as case law.

Hi guys,

i was viewing some various websites and i came cross one i cant remember mentioning that the crown is supposed to in its evidence against you is supposed to have a certified letter from mto indicated drivers license being suspended........

is there any reference material for this such as

case law

any acts

etc

Production of a certified letter from the MTO confirming the suspension is not written anywhere in law, however it is the only way the crown can actually prove that you were, in fact, suspended at the time you were caught driving.

The officer knows you were (or believes you were) because the computer told him so, and he's usually right, but that is hearsay evidence and not admissible in court. The only evidence the crown can actually enter is the certified document.

They are supposed to serve it on you prior to using it in trial to give you opportunity to review it and prepare a rebuttal.

Simon,

thanks for answering all my questions and helping me along this never ending battle

my question now pertains to;

what type of document is the police officer or prosecutor supposed to serve on me?? to prove the DL is suspended?

so do i just reference the JP to hearsay case law due to police officer just reading it off his screen and believing it?

Could i ask you to perhaps tell me how i can use this to my advantage to get this ticket dropped? perhaps any case law you might be aware of.

The document is a certified record from the Ministry of Transportation stating that said driver was suspended on the date in question.

I don't think you're going to have to point out to the JP that the officer is giving hearsay evidence, I very much doubt that the crown or the JP would allow it to go that far. If they do, all you need to do is stand up and say, "I object, that's hearsay evidence." Or something like that.

I'm not sure how you can use this to your advantage. If the crown is going to produce the document then it's likely going to be admitted by the JP.