Police officers in Quebec no longer have the power to randomly pull over drivers after a landmark court ruling on Tuesday that civil rights lawyers hope will have an impact across the country.

In what the Canadian Civil Liberties Association calls a "significant victory" against racial profiling, the Quebec Superior Court invalidated arbitrary police traffic stops following a constitutional challenge by Joseph-Christopher Luamba.

Luamba, a 22-year-old Montreal resident who is Black, launched the legal challenge after he said he had been stopped by police nearly a dozen times without reason. None of the stops resulted in a ticket.

The CCLA intervened in the case on his behalf and successfully argued in court that the police power violated his rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and allowed for racial profiling within policing. 

"This is a significant victory against racial profiling for many people: Black, Indigenous and other racialized people who have been disproportionately stopped by police for decades," said Gillian Moore, director of the equality program with the CCLA, on Wednesday.

Quebec Superior Court Justice Michel Yergeau wrote in his 170-page decision that racial profiling does exist and weighs heavily on Black people in particular. It was time, he wrote, for the court to render the police power obsolete as well as the section in Quebec's Highway Safety Code that allowed it to continue. In doing so, Yergeau overturned a 32-year-old precedent. 

While the ruling only applies in Quebec, "our hope is that Quebec will lead the way," said Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, executive director and general counsel of the CCLA.

"That other jurisdictions across Canada will make the same move, hopefully without needing a challenge, and will eliminate the police power for arbitrary stops that impacted racialized people."

Police chiefs in other jurisdictions can, if they want, instruct their officers to stop randomly pulling drivers over in light of the court ruling, even if the law was only invalidated in Quebec, Mendelsohn Aviv said.

"It's certainly the most important decision on racial profiling during my career as a lawyer," said the CCLA's Laura Berger. "It will certainly have an impact not only in Quebec but will also have an influence, I hope, outside of Quebec."

POLICE CHIEFS ASSOCIATION WORRIED ABOUT RULING

Police forces are given a grace period of six months before the power to randomly stop motorists will be officially taken away. The association representing police chiefs in Quebec said it is concerned about what the ruling will mean for road safety.

Didier Deramond, director general of the Association des directeurs de police du Québec, said there are "societal costs" to officers losing that policing power on the streets, including the fight against impaired driving. He said with the legalization of cannabis, police are seeing more people driving impaired and new rules.

"There's at least one person dying per day in Quebec on our roads. So many more with major injuries … Taking out the power that's been given to us by the common law will have some consequences," he said.

"For all the other people that are driving impaired, the prevention piece of it will not be there. So there are consequences that I don't know many more injuries, but it will be an increase."

Quebec Premier François Legault told reporters Wednesday he needs to review the judgement more closely, but said his government stands against racial profiling.

"When we talk about traffic stops, we have to let the police do their jobs when we see the violence in Montreal, in certain neighbourhoods. I have full confidence in our police and it's important to support them," he said.

Reacting to the ruling on Wednesday, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said it sends a message that is "very clear and loud that there's no place in our society for any types of social or racial profiling."

"To me, it goes with the values of the City of Montreal and with all of our partners, SPVM included, and other partners as well," she said. 

RACIAL PROFILING EXISTS: JUDGE

Justice Yergeau did not mince words in his ruling on Tuesday.

"As a society, we cannot wait for a part of the population to continue to suffer in silence in the hope that a rule of law will finally receive from the police services an application that respects the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Charter," Yergeau wrote.

"Racial profiling does exist. It is not a laboratory-constructed abstraction ... It is a reality that weighs heavily on Black communities. It manifests itself in particular with Black drivers of motor vehicles."

His decision, however, was limited to racialized people's experience with random traffic stops and, he said, was not meant to serve as a broader inquiry into systemic racism.

The CCLA said Wednesday that a number of factors can influence an officer's decision to pull someone over, including systemic racism, unconscious biases, or even police quota systems.

"There are any number of reasons that can lead to these unnecessary, unjustifiable stops. So whether or not a decision addresses the broader picture, the role of the courts is to address the question that's before them and the answer here is absolutely clear: this police power is unconstitutional," Mendelsohn Aviv said.

With files from CTV Montreal's Kelly Greig