39. Any member of the Sûreté du Québec, any member of a municipal police force or any person authorized for such purposes by the Minister may, at any place and at any reasonable time, stop any vehicle, require the owner or driver or the person in charge of the vehicle to produce for examination, as the case may be, the copy of the permit provided for in section 27.2 and the manifest or way-bill provided for in section 32.1, measure the capacity of the fuel tanks, examine the fuel carried or to be used to supply the engine and take the necessary samples of it.
The person may also order that the vehicle not be moved where the owner, driver or the person in charge of it refuses to submit to any examination or inspection provided for in the first paragraph or does not hold the documents referred to in that paragraph or produces a manifest or way-bill containing inaccurate or incomplete information or where the person has reasonable grounds to believe that an offence is being or has been committed under paragraph a of section 42 where it refers to section 27.2, under paragraph a of section 42.1 where it refers to section 27, under paragraph b of section 42.1, under paragraph b of section 43 or under paragraph b of section 43.1. In any such case, the owner, driver or person in charge of the vehicle shall identify himself and produce the vehicle registration certificate for examination.
Unless a member of the Sûreté du Québec, a member of a municipal police force or the Minister, as the case may be, authorizes otherwise, the vehicle shall not be moved until a judge rules on the application referred to in section 40.1, which must be introduced with reasonable dispatch, and until the vehicle is seized, where applicable.
However, if a vehicle is left for the night elsewhere than in a public place and all activity related to its use has ceased, no examination or inspection provided for in the first paragraph may be carried out without a warrant between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. by a person referred to in the first paragraph.
1972, c. 30, s. 39; 1977, c. 5, s. 14; 1984, c. 35, s. 44; 1986, c. 18, s. 5; 1990, c. 4, s. 845; 1991, c. 15, s. 16; 1993, c. 79, s. 53; 1996, c. 31, s. 38.