XN000022-1995-11-08 — Page 13

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Bill to benefit minor offenders to be gazetted

The Government is to introduce legislative amendments to expand the scope of the rehabilitation scheme under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Ordinance so that more people who have committed minor offences can benefit, a government spokesman said today (Wednesday).

The current rehabilitation scheme, introduced in 1986, provides that where a person, on a first conviction, was not sentenced to imprisonment or a fine exceeding $5,000, the conviction can be disregarded for most purposes after three years so long as he has no further conviction.

The spokesman said the amendments, proposed under the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill 1995, sought to expand the scheme following the recommendations made by the Fight Crime Committee in 1990.

"A public consultation exercise held in 1989 found that the majority of the public supported the expansion of the scheme," he said.

The spokesman said with the proposed amendments, the scheme would be expanded to cover persons who, on a first conviction, were sentenced to imprisonment for not more than three months or a fine not exceeding $10,000.

"It will also be expanded to cover those who have been convicted of triad related offences, but have subsequently renounced their membership under the Triad Renunciation Scheme provided that they meet the other criteria of the rehabilitation scheme," he said.

"Moreover, payments under the fixed penalty scheme and other minor road traffic convictions are proposed to be spent immediately without the waiting period of three years.

"Nevertheless, we propose that for safety reasons, such payments by and convictions of vocational drivers should only be spent after a period of three years.

"This will enable transport operators to take into account the traffic conviction records of applicants in determining the employment of vocational drivers."

However, the spokesman pointed out that the arrangements for payments under the fixed penalty scheme and other minor traffic convictions to be spent immediately would have no impact on repeated offenders under the Road Traffic Ordinance, nor on the driving-offence points scheme.