XN000022-1995-11-22 — Page 9

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The current rehabilitation scheme provides that where a person, on a first conviction, was not sentenced to imprisonment or a fine exceeding $5,000, the conviction can be regarded as spent for most purposes after three years so long as he has no further conviction. The person concerned is permitted to say nothing about his/her previous conviction in his/her business and social dealings, such as in applications for jobs, hire purchase, insurance, and the like. Moreover, the person cannot lawfully be refused employment or admission to a profession on account of his/her spent conviction. Unauthorised disclosure of a spent conviction is an offence.

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Taking account of the views of the public on various proposals to improve the scheme, the Fight Crime Committee has made a number of recommendations which are incorporated into the Bill now put before Members.

We propose that the scheme should be expanded to cover persons who, on a first conviction, are sentenced to imprisonment for not more than three months or a fine not exceeding $10,000. We propose that persons who have been convicted of triad related offences, but have subsequently renounced their triad membership under the Triad Renunciation Scheme, should be covered by the scheme, provided that they meet the other criteria.

We propose that payments under the fixed penalty scheme and other minor traffic convictions to be spent immediately without the waiting period of three years. Nevertheless, for public safety reasons, we propose that for vocational drivers, such payments and convictions should only be spent after a period of three years, so as to enable transport operators to take into account the vocational drivers' traffic conviction records in determining their applications for employment.

Another change we propose to the existing scheme is that convictions should be 'once spent, always spent'. That is to say, where a convicted person is not reconvicted after three years, then his first conviction will become spent and will not revive, even if he were convicted of another offence at a later date. Having said that, the second offence will not be allowed to be spent, lest it might lead to a loss of deterrence against repeated offenders of minor crimes. Moreover, arrangements will be made to enable the spent conviction of a reconvicted person to be brought to the attention of the court for sentencing purposes to avoid a repeated offender being treated as a first time offender.