XN000022-1996-04-24 — Page 31

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At present, prospective emigrants are required by the immigration authorities of the major emigration destinations to produce Certificates of No Criminal Convictions (CNCCs) issued by the Police. In making an application for a CNCC, the applicant is required to authorize the Police to disclose any criminal conviction recorded against him to the relevant consulate and immigration authority. If the applicant has a spent conviction, the Police will issue him with a refusal letter, which contains details of the conviction, and is stamped with a chop stating clearly that the conviction is considered to be spent in Hong Kong by virtue of section 2(1) of Rehabilitation of Offenders Ordinance. It is then up to the applicant to decide whether he wants to present it to the consulate. The issue by the Police of refusal letters to applicants with spent convictions has been held by the courts to be consistent with the provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Ordinance.

We have been advised by the consulates of major emigration destinations that a spent conviction is not necessarily a bar to emigration. Convictions of minor offences alone will not normally render a person ineligible for a visa, and convictions currently regarded in Hong Kong as spent are rarely considered sufficiently serious to cause rejection of an emigration application. However, if an emigration applicant fails to declare a spent conviction, and this fact comes to the consulate's attention, his application may be rejected. If the person concerned has already emigrated, it could result in his eventual deportation back to his original place of residence. Depending on the nature of the undeclared conviction, such refusal or deportation could have been avoided had the conviction been declared at the time of application. Seen in this light. therefore, the current Police practice actually helps to protect the interests of emigration applicants. In response to the Bills Committee's request, we explained our position on the issue of CNCCs to the Administration of Justice and Legal Services Panel and the Security Panel at their joint-Panel meeting held this Monday.

I would now like to turn to the major amendments which I will move at the Committee Stage. Clause 5 of the Bill proposes, among other things, the exclusion of certain proceedings under the Banking Ordinance and the Insurance Companies Ordinance from the rehabilitation scheme. Having consulted the insurance industry. we propose to move amendments to this clause, so as to expand the exclusion to cover proceedings under the Insurance Companies Ordinance in assessing a person's suitability to become, or continue to be, an appointed insurance agent or an authorized insurance broker. This proposal is made in the interest of the insuring public. Owing to the complicated nature of the insurance business, a potential policy holder relies heavily on the professional advice of the agent or broker, who may be handling substantial sums of clients' monies. To avoid any fraud or misappropriation of funds, it is necessary to ensure that an agent or a broker is a fit and proper person.